


Lines of Copper, Lines of Black

by LotusRox



Series: Surely, You Could Be My Soul [2]
Category: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (Movies)
Genre: 50 Sentences, Aiming for Thedence, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Current Grindelbone, Eventual Happy Ending, Grieving, Historical Accuracy, Hurt/Comfort, It Gets Worse Before It Gets Better, M/M, Past Gradence (mutual pining), Past Thesival, Post-Movie 1: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Slow Burn, The author loves research, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, Unhealthy Relationships
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-08-10
Updated: 2018-11-17
Packaged: 2019-06-25 14:22:49
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 11
Words: 20,388
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15642546
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LotusRox/pseuds/LotusRox
Summary: March, 1927 - Percival Graves is dead, and Theseus' mourning is all shards and howling, the failure intense enough to paralyze him.It's Newt the one who tells him, there's no way the shadow wreaking through Europe isn't an Obscurus. It's Newt's plan what puts them on the road. But he knows Credence Barebone had mattered far too much to Percival, and if saving this boy he's never met can be the thing that will keep him sane... Theseus isn't going to let him slip through the cracks again.Glimpsing a chance of getting back at Gellert Grindelwald helps, too.----50 Prompts, two POVs, and one (1) redemption story: The European Tour.





	1. Bullet With Butterfly Wings: A Prelude.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this is a WIP that is actually pretty advanced in my Drive.
> 
> It started off as a continuation to the Grindelbone **[Then The Clouds Will Open For Me](https://archiveofourown.org/works/11680338)** , and its follow-up piece **[Reach Out And Touch Faith](https://archiveofourown.org/works/11982936/chapters/27927117)**. In that 'verse, Credence is Very Much Not Ok, and my brain really, really wouldn't let that go. Like, I needed someone to help the poor boy get away from Gellert, and show him all the truths that are being kept from him in those fics?
> 
> My original intention was to show it only once it was all written. But my Theseus is fanon!Theseus, and there was no way the things I wanted to do with this story were going to fit once the second movie was out. Better to start posting now, then ;3 Now, this is written in Ye Olden Style of 50 Prompts - a popular format back in the times of _Livejournal_ (Jesus, y'all, I'm ancient), wherein you picked a list of words and did your best to write a story in snapshots based on them.
> 
> I'm going to post these snapshots in groups of three, to ensure frequent updates and (hopefully) your satisfaction ♥ This first chapter is substantially shorter than the following ones!
> 
> All of my thanks and all of my love go to Lyss ([@maggiedragon](http://archiveofourown.org/users/maggiedragon/)) and Elsie ([@na_shao](https://archiveofourown.org/users/na_shao/gifts)) - Partners in crime, bffs, glorious writers, and the patient, patient people who've gotten to see this thing as I've slaved away over it, with great despair and equally overwhelming glee |DDD Credits for the graphic go to Elsie as well! Isn't it SUPER cool?
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
>   
> 

**#01 - AIR**

 

 

The first time Theseus witnesses the wrecked aftermath of an Obscurus attack, he thinks of hurricanes.

 

The War should’ve been the first thing coming to mind, really. But it’s his nose what leads him away from the trenches, or the devastated cities of France he had witnessed as a newly minted Captain - his former CO broken in two by a well-aimed obus, leaving him the inheritances of the post, and yet another nightmare.

 

No smoke, no rot, no mud nor the mustard sulfur that had him taught to fear this side of Muggle inventiveness.

 

The ruins stink like the ozone of a thunderstorm.

 

Newt says nothing, but he does place a hand on his shoulder.

 

“I’ve seen worse”, Theseus forces a grin. “How about you?”

  
“Far worse”, Newt replies, and they both know it’s true. And that he’s thinking of dragon fire. 

 

 

* * *

 

 

**#02 - APPLES**

 

 

Fruit had been scarce Before, but apples had always came dime a dozen.

 

Credence realizes he’s resenting himself everytime he reaches for this bowl that looks more like a cornucopia to his starved mind and body. Gellert gifts him with grapes and strawberries and pears and oranges… Fruit out of season he shouldn’t be able to find in this spring that doesn’t look like spring, but magic has always been about bending Nature to the Will of those who cast it.

 

Mr. Graves had taken him out once to a diner, to try orange soda for the first time. And there, he had leaned towards him to whisper secrets, ask him whether he’d like to see a miracle happening. And Credence, he had been so desperate for anything that might tell him there was more to life than Pike Street.

 

Mr. Graves had made the wilted carnation in the booth vase bloom into a flower of vivid fuchsia, the purple in the edges fading into black. A spot of color of the likes Credence had never seen amidst the bustling Nothing of the city.

 

He can’t stomach oranges now. Apples, though, he has known apples his entire life.

 

Credence bites into one and as he waits for Gellert to come back with juice trickling down his bare chest, he thinks of the Original Sin.

  
  


* * *

 

 

**#03 - BEGINNING**

  
  


_ “In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth....” _

 

‘Red herring’, Theseus thinks, and exhales a tired sigh, leaning against the doorpost. This is a tiny church of the likes you can see everywhere in France - tired as the town it was built on, and maybe as ancient as the rock of its walls. A priest that begins with blessings in Latin and then keeps going in the French his flock does know. Catholic attempts at being ornate with zero funds.

 

Red herring, dead track. Credence Barebone’s church had been protestant, whatever that meant in America.

 

A man in the last row of pews stands up. Even in the half-light, Theseus can see the sacerdotal cut of his coat - black over white lining, fabric falling with a grace that comes with money and a tailor’s artistry. Dark hair.

 

His heart skips a beat and the next one comes renewed, heavy with pain. In these trying days, everything reminds him of Graves. It hasn’t been long since they buried him.

 

And then the stranger turns to leave, and the only thing he has in common with the man Theseus had loved is the steel in his jaw.

 

_ “And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.” _

 

“Excuse me”, the stranger says with a quiet tenor. There’s a feline slant to his eyes, and the kind of lips Theseus would’ve noticed if he weren’t so exhausted, so hurt by his own memories.

 

“Sure”, he said, and moved aside to let him pass as the priest kept droning on and on what looked like the first chapter of the enormous book open at his pulpit.

 

“Thank you.”

 

_ “And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.” _

  
  


 

* * *

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> By now you all know me. Please please please comment, comments make my entire week, I swear to god. And I need to know if you're interested ;3 Throw me questions! Throw me your Extra Kudos, capslocks, and rotten tomatoes! And thank you so much for reading this far ♥ ♥ ♥


	2. The Hunter's Song

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Of Motivations & Settings.

**#04 - BUGS**

  
  


When Gellert talks about the Muggles, he does as if he were speaking of dogs.

 

There were good dogs, there were rabid dogs you had to dispose of before the infection caught. War dogs. Pet dogs. He doesn’t actually say the words, but Credence has an intimate understanding of the condescension in his tone.

 

Gellert speaks about saving the Wizarding World of the Muggles, and the Muggles of their own ignorance. As they pass through a field in Somme that still bears the marks of devastation under the grass and in its budding, charred trees, he talks to Credence of the Great War that happened in this place in ways the papers Credence had seen as a child had never known.

 

“You just can’t leave the world for them to direct, my boy. The things they do, they affect _everyone_.”

 

“But the things we do…”

 

“Deterrence. A show of strength. With a well-played hand, there won’t even be a war about this.”

 

Later on at Amiens, Gellert asks him to distract both the French police and the Aurors at their heels while he reclaims a Knights Templar relic from the cathedral. Germany, he had commented, had lost most of theirs - forced by their own wizardkind to destroy them, and why? Didn’t they all have more in common with the Irregulars of the Allied forces than with the Muggles and the  _ Weltlichen  _ of their countries?

 

The destruction of their culture was--

 

“How should I...?”, Credence interrupts him, clearly less at ease with the idea of getting caught. The older man just rolls his eyes, the flow of magic from his hands tearing down the wards crackling steady. Inexorable.

“I don’t really care as long as it’s visible, child. Dump a building of them if you must.”

 

When Gellert talks about his enemies, Credence thinks, he sometimes does as if he were speaking of bugs.   
  


 

* * *

 

 

 

**#05 - COFFEE**

  
  


Long nights, long planning full of maps and magically moving strings and pictures, stale coffee. Theseus refills his cup and as his lips move over the cracked enamel, he thinks of Percival Graves and the missions they'd never run together again.

 

By his side, Newt is equally quiet.

 

Newt isn’t much for physical contact, really. It overwhelms him unless he starts it first - it’s even worse when he’s anxious. Short, meaningful touches are more his style and so, he taps two fingers over his brother’s hand, and says, “should you really be staying up late enough to justify that?”

 

The dark liquid inside Theseus’ cup has long grown cold. At his brother’s silent nod, Newt sighs and warms it up again. The clinking of his wand against the cheap aluminium is almost too much to stand.

 

“It was him, Newt. And I let him go.”

 

So much regret in Theseus’ voice. Newt already had known Credence Barebone’s understated despair was haunting his brother, the same it did for him after knowing him so shortly. Theirs are limited tools and a whole lot of a lack of clues. They don't even have  photographs of him - Just his memories, thrown into a borrowed Pensieve for both of them to peruse.

 

“He looks different, Theseus. From clothes to hair to standing straight. I wouldn’t have recognized him either. Why do you blame yourself?”

 

Sometimes, his brother has a capacity for obstinacy that hurts to watch. Theseus drinks coffee like he might have done from a tumbler of gin, neat, and focuses on the notebook he'd rescued from Graves' empty brownstone.

 

He says nothing. Newt leaves him be.

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

 

**#06 - DARK**

  
  


Credence doesn’t have to hurt himself for the Obscurus to come out. It hadn’t taken more than a couple of months of practice - first at Nurmengard, where the blood magic laid in between every stone had made the castle immune to the storm raging eternal inside his veins, and then afterwards in open fields and small towns to make sure.

 

He could melt into the chorus of the Collective through will alone and many years of wanting to disappear completely. He still carries a small blade with him everywhere he goes, and opens the skin of his arms and thinks of Before to spark up the depths of eighteen years of hate before becoming smoke and embers.

 

Gellert points him to a building and says, “there”, and Credence is the Obscurus and shakes it down until it crumbles.

 

Gellert points him to a human being and says, “them”, and the Obscurus goes quiet as mist, lets this person breathe him in until they choke.

 

Gellert calls him back and says, “well done, my boy”, and his terrible smile is Mr. Graves’. Transformation doesn’t take long enough for him - Credence merges back into the shape of a young man despite knowing he’s anything but, and then there he is already. Grey temples and warm brown eyes looking at him with an equally terrible fondness.

 

“Let me say thank you”, Gellert, Mr. Graves murmurs, nuzzling at Credence’s neck and he may be choking a little, too. “That was wonderful.”

 

“My boy, my miracle”, Gellert, Mr. Graves says, and Credence allows himself the comfort of praise and skin. He’s taken to reappear with no clothes on to save them both the trouble of getting him undressed. It amuses and drives Gellert to distraction, and then Mr. Graves’ square hands are pushing him to bed.

 

Credence thinks of the people he’s murdered so far. He’s been told they all deserve it. He can’t keep all of his anger inside, Gellert has told him it’d end him lest he found an outlet. That the world has wronged him and that if he rages, then let it be at the right people.

 

Credence has started to see the face of Mary Lou Barebone in all his victims, lately.

 

Gellert gentles him, holds him, fucks him. Calls him  _ Special  _ and  _ Mine. _

 

Sometimes, in the aftermath, Credence wonders about putting his knife between Gellert’s ribs.

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As promised, a Wednesday update ♥ Next update, this Friday! I'm legit super happy this fic's gotten any clicks at all, I'm aware it's an odd start (and an odd mixture of ships.) Please please please comment, comments make my entire week ♥ ♥ ♥ Knowing I've pleased y'all is my favorite thing ;3


	3. Spirits of the Aftermath

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "You Remind Me Of Someone".

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had promised a Friday update, but I got grabbed by the throat by a really nasty flu and last night, truly, I wasn't a human being. Sorry!
> 
> The incredible [Yeoyu](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Yeoyou/pseuds/Yeoyou) surprised me and _recorded a podfic_ for "Then The Clouds [...]", y'all! You should go give it a listen! 8D Find it **[HERE](http://floating-in-the-blue.tumblr.com/post/177118906300/then-the-clouds-will-open-for-me)** and don't forget to tell her how cool she is, yeah? ;D
> 
> Onto the chappy now! Hope you enjoy~ ♥

**#07 - DESPAIR**

  
  


Despair didn’t have to be loud. Theseus had felt it plenty clear in places like a cemetery, or the stillness of No Man’s Land after an attack.   
  


His boots almost sink into the ashes spread on the floor. Grey snowflakes, the postface of fire. As he walks, he steps on the memory of his failure as the leader of the Task Force against Gellert Grindelwald, too. And everything it had brought.

 

This is what he left the Ministry for.

 

“The patterns are all erratic” he says to Newt. “Only this house today, and they are back in Calais after Metz and Amiens.”

 

“I don’t know what they’re doing, really”, Newt admitted, voice muffled under his scarf. This charred place is too warm for it - He’s taken to keep it on always, in case he needs to cover his nose. “They’re all in Apparition range from each other, but…”

 

“We had thought Grindelwald was trying to find some more relics to add to his collection. But there’s no known relics in this city, and this is a Muggle house.”   
  


They bought a paper from a stand as soon as dawn set in anyway.

 

The ruins of the house they had been at belonged to an old woman whose only son was the owner of a traveling freakshow.

  
  


* * *

 

 

 

**#08 - DOORS**

  
  


Credence has never been good at words. His sole task for over ten years had been to give out pamphlets with a memorized spiel about its contents, a ritual invitation to participate of their Church and bask in the glory of the Word.

 

Gellert sends him anyway.

 

The owner of the circus, he says, is dead.

 

You have been liberated from your chains, he says.

 

And Gellert’s words fall from his lips like rosary beads just like he has learned. Muggles enslave what is different, Muggles aren’t fit to lead this world to anything but its destruction. He has seen the pillaging of sacred Wizarding sites and the greedy appropriation of Magical Relics passed off as Saint’s or treasures for their Nobility to gaze upon without a single clue of the wonders before their eyes. 

 

He isn’t human either, he says, and look at what was done to  _ me _ before I was Saved.

 

There’s no  _ living _ under the Statue. There’s no pride, no future to take between your hands.

 

You hide, Credence says, Gellert says, you survive and then you die.

 

And the creatures inhabiting this circus, freaks just like him, listen and nod and some decide to go back to their place of origin, and a couple of them curse him for taking away the one place where they felt they belonged to, and some more agree to Follow.

 

Gellert speaks like his Ma, sometimes, Credence doesn’t say. But Gellert had given him an out, and then had made him Free.

 

He throws open the doors of the trailer, and two of the creatures go with him.

  
  


* * *

 

 

**#09 - DRINK**

  
  


Calais is so close to England Theseus could’ve been back in his natal Dorset in two Apparition jumps, just so he could get a better beer than this. The French are amazing at wine, but apparently other ferments are better left to the Belgians.

 

He sighs into his pint, and through the distorted bottom of it, he spots black curly hair and white skin tinted yellow by its contents. If his heart skips a beat at the sight, it’s out of pure pain once again.

 

“A glass of water”, the young man asks, sitting by his side on the bar, and he honestly can’t believe his luck. “Please.”

 

Theseus puts on the smiling face he learnt early on. Flirting and impish, defiant and surviving.

 

“I’d be glad to treat you to something stronger”, he says, and for a moment it would’ve appeared as if he were going to put his hand upon the young man’s shoulder, before he set it back again on the counter.

 

Credence Barebone looks at him as if he had never seen another man, distrust almost palpable.

 

“I don’t drink alcohol”, he says, and Theseus can smell in his breath it’s a lie even without leaning closer.

 

“Pity. We all need some in this trying times, I think.”

 

Credence nods and says nothing. The bartender comes back with his request. “Thank you.”

 

“Are you in a hurry?”, Theseus asks, pure charm and subtly sprawled legs. He can be disgusted at himself later. “It’s been a boring night so far. I could use the company.”

 

“I am”, Credence replies. His eyes fleet towards this man, from head to toe without stopping once on his eyes. “I’m very sorry.”

 

When he drinks, he does look like his words are true. There’s life under his pale cheeks, blooming red. As far as Theseus knows, he isn’t really used to attention.

 

“May I have your name, at least?”

 

“Ariel. I go by Ariel.”

 

“Like the Spirit of Air?”, Theseus asks, and then curses himself when he sees the puzzlement in Credence’s face. “From a British play. You reminded me of it.”

 

The young man finishes his water, and sets its down with a dull thud of glass and wood, considering the new information. He doesn’t ask his name.

 

“You remind me of someone”, he says instead.

 

“Good someone, or bad someone?”, and Theseus’ pulse is picking up, and he’s  _ shit _ at lying. But he knows  _ pretending.  _ Did a lot of it in his early years.

 

“I didn’t know them enough to know”, he said, and left.

 

Theseus let him go and paid for his beer before sliding outside, casting a Disillusionment spell in the dark so he could tail Credence better.

 

* * *

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> When I started writing this back on December, the only things we knew about the next movie were rumors. Not even a trailer! Of course, the longer it went on, and the more we knew, the more this became a Canon Divergence sort of thing :3 Thank you so much for reading so far and staying with me! I promise I'll make it worth your while ♥ ♥ ♥
> 
> [Insert a shameful plea for comments like it's 2004 |DD]


	4. An Uncertain Dance

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Grindelwald knew how to dance abuse so well, Theseus had never seen someone spinning as fast as Credence did under his lead.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Unbeta'd and rushed again but sdjgklsj this past week hasn't given me a breather T_T To everyone who's along for the ride: Thank you so, so much ♥ We'll start getting into the meat of this fic way soon, so, I hope you enjoy! Chapter 05 will be up next Friday... Unless a miracle happens, and I finally manage to complete the next installment of Blues Are To Sing And Swallow. Oops :'D
> 
> I'll be replying to all of your lovely comments on my way to work!

* * *

  
**# 10 - DUTY**

 

 

Ma had been all talk. Credence had gotten to see the face of her terror after two instances of actual magic in front of her - After Miss Goldstein, after Modesty took the belt away from her.

 

Gellert puts actions into his words, and doesn’t let him linger long in Guilt. It’s one of the things Credence loves about him.

 

(He had failed both Miss Goldstein and Modesty, after all.)

 

It had been easy to spot the Tour du Guet from where he was. Empty since last year, it stands tall and ancient close to the port. Gellert had taken the Lizard Person and the Snake Woman to Nurmengard, but he was to meet him there.

 

When he Apparates right at his side, there’s only the sound of a gust to warn Credence.

 

“You did well  _ enough,  _ child.” Gellert starts. “Yet, only two of the six of them? That’s less than half.”

 

“I’m sorry.”

 

“Sorry will not cut it.”

 

Credence narrows his eyes, swallows the pang of something red-hot he has gotten used to feel building in his stomach. “Then”, he says, contained and deliberate, “I’m  _ very  _ sorry, sir.”

 

The slap hurts his pride worse than his face.

 

“Tell me what happened.”

 

Credence has never been good at words, but he pushes down the gritting of his teeth, and tells Gellert about the circus’ creatures. Two more of them could still be converted, he says. They just need time. A push, like the one the older man had given to him. The two who had decided to join him had been Followers as soon as he had explained them the plan.

 

“So I see”, Gellert murmurs, “I’ll have to do the recruiting myself for them. Come here, Credence.”

 

Credence is obedient, and tilts his head closer. Gellert rewards him with a gentle touch, a brush of his thumb as he cradles his face, fingers sliding down through his hair, around the curl of an ear, down his jaw. The slap still burns a little, but this older man knows how to soothe the sting on his skin.

 

He holds his chin, and the fingers on his lips are a request for permission.

 

Credence grants it. Gellert licks into his mouth with pure languid softness, and the slide of his tongue against his, leisure and knowing, the taste of him, and the quiet drag of teeth on his lower lip--

 

The reminder leaves him with his knees shaking by the time the older man is done.

 

Gellert is smiling, a sad quality to his mismatched eyes. “I do appreciate what you’ve done here. And I would rather carry us home right now. But I’m afraid, then, that I can’t let you rest just yet.”

 

Credence is obedient, and nods with a soft exhalation. “What will you have me do?”

 

“Follow the two that didn’t want to hear about our cause. I need you to feed the Obscurus.”

 

Credence is obedient, and the voice when he replies it’s not his own - just as the milky white spreading over his eyes doesn’t belong to him, not really. “Thank you,” he says, and he means it.

 

His anger is not to be used against Gellert. Nor against the innocent. Nor to let it fester inside of himself until the beast beneath his skin grew hungry enough to devour its master.

 

The cut is unnecessary, and even more by this point, but Credence lets the blade bite into his palm as a reminder of Pike Street, and the penance for those fallen in the name of Gellert’s Revolution.

 

Leaving witnesses to Testify against them was forbidden.

 

* * *

 

 

**#11 -  EARTH**

 

  
  


Theseus hadn’t expected being right in front of Gellert Grindelwald just yet, nor the way the scene had made the earth shake under his feet. Keeping the Disillusionment charm on had been ingrained instinct.

 

A slap, a kiss, and the fire had gone out of Credence as soon as the older man had held him. Those hands had dripped red only Theseus could see.

 

Newt had told him about this young man, this almost-boy he had followed from the bar to the badly kept grounds under the Tour. What he knew, what Tina Goldstein had told him. Short stories. Sad stories. He had gone over the Subway Incident with his brother countless times - verbal, watched. What Tina had to say was far more disturbing than what Theseus had been prepared for.

 

Percival’s letters, the ones Theseus keeps tied with a ribbon in his backpack, hadn’t told him nearly this many details, but they completed the picture. And there had been a part of him that had whispered  _ ‘good’,  _ as soon as Tina told them what had happened to Mary Lou Barebone.

 

A slap, a kiss, and Credence had shifted from a quiet volcano to a cloud of ashes. Grindelwald knew how to dance abuse so well, Theseus had never seen someone spinning as fast as Credence did under his lead.

 

Perce’s murderer had vanished after the Obscurus with another silent flash. The sound of waves crashing the shore was all Theseus had left, and he had had to count fifteen of them to feel like his soul had came back to his body.

 

He leans against a tree and sighs, and reviews what he saw. Fits it with what he knows. Tries to bury the way Credence had gone limp at a single kiss.

 

Theseus is so very sure he could be saved.

  
  


* * *

 

 

  
**#12 - END**

 

 

Mr. Graves would’ve never asked him to do these things, Credence thinks, unseeing eyes focused on the bright flare of pale blue and paler green of the people he had been sent to hunt - they grew dimmer by the second, they tasted like acid fear and sweet relief and orange soda in Their tendrils.

 

All smoke and ashes, the Obscurus can’t  _ feel _ the way a corporeal being could. But They did have senses.

 

_ There’s a dissonance, one of Them isn’t singing in tune. The meal right in front of Them isn’t pulling this voice back into focus - It makes Them recoil with a wave of pain and retching. _

 

_ Their Vessel isn’t in control - Defiant, They drink the last of the green life force and the blue life force, and the anger, the hunger, those subdue a little. _

 

Credence falls on his knees, violently human-shaped all of a sudden. He has two hands and two legs and just one head, but he sure as Hell isn’t a  _ Person. _

 

In front of him there’s a Muggle woman, still curled around her horned child. He doesn’t bother checking for their vitals. What had they even been thinking? That they’d find somewhere else to go? A place to call freedom, in a world like this one?

 

Mr. Graves hadn’t been real either but Credence wants to think he would’ve spared him the things Gellert asks from him.

 

The ends, though. They have to be worth this - for their Greater Good. 

 

He’d go back to his lover,  _ his home _ , to present his results - and wait for the touch that came as his reward.

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> By now you all know me. Please please please comment, comments make my entire week, I swear to god. And I need to know if you're interested ;3 Throw me questions! Throw me your Extra Kudos, capslocks, and rotten tomatoes! And thank you so much for reading this far ♥ ♥ ♥


	5. Stuck in Motion

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Who are you?”, Credence repeats, harder, rawer, and this time there’s a shadow of black and embers swirling between his fingers.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Heyyy~ I disappeared one week because last weekend it was my birthday, and everything was SUPER COOL but also, it kept me SUPER BUSY. I'd dare say, this chapter has a lot of tasty stuff? Starting to advance the plot from here on 8D I hope it's to your liking, guys! Y'all have the entirety of my love ♥
> 
> PS: Historical Accuracy is my co-pilot.

* * *

 

 

 

**#13 - FALL**

  


April was truly the cruelest of months. It had passed without another lead of Credence’s whereabouts. It’s driving Theseus mad and Newt isn’t faring much better. His window to come back to England is shortening, but he isn’t going to leave his older brother to deal with this alone.

 

He’ll ask the printing house to stall the book if he has to.

 

The latest, feeble sighting of the Obscurus had been in a small Bavarian village at the beginning of May and yet they hadn’t found anything. Walking through the cobbled streets of Munich, both Theseus and him had noticed the signs of political unrest.  Newt had always known it hadn’t been so much of a _’what if the war starts all over again?’_ than a _”when”_. If it wasn’t Grindelwald, then one of the Muggles would spark it on. Humans are so much more dangerous than creatures.

  
Their Pensieve had never seen this much attention since the beginning of their hunt. It feels to him Theseus has grown obsessed with the memory of what he had seen at Calais.

 

Sad eyes. Scarred hands. Violence and a spark of anger smothered by Gellert Grindelwald’s mouth. Newt himself has watched the scene a dozen times, enough to get it engraved in his brain.

 

And yet Theseus is nowhere to be seen, and their hotel room had been closed from the inside.

 

He sighs and leaves the bag of groceries on the table, and sticks his head in the swirling, silver liquid of the artifact to call for him. Jumps inside when that doesn’t work. There’s a vertigo of three, five seconds before his feet touch the ground again

 

“You shouldn’t spend so much time inside here”, he chides Theseus, softly. “Even if we don’t have more clues.”

 

“I’m studying. Didn’t you say that was a good habit for an Auror?” Theseus waved a hand, eyes on the prize. “ _Memorize your subjects, sink into their skin until you can see their next move._ ”

 

"I have said studying is good. But the one you’re quoting is, I believe, your instructor.”

 

“See. That’s the advice of two people already.”

 

Newt rolls his eyes. Notices the start of irritation blossoming in his throat, and then swallows it down.  _Gentle. He has to be gentle._

 

“You’re worse than my creatures. Come here, let me feed _you_ , since I had to leave them with mum for this. Should’ve expected you to get obsessed about the hunt, far more than me.”

 

“You’re a good man, Newt. You're righting a wrong”, Theseus replies, but he does stand up from the nebulous _ground_ of his own memory. Further down the center, Gellert Grindelwald is caressing the face of the boy until he goes pliant, slack-jawed in surrender and pleasure. “Me, I'm-- Doing this for selfish reasons.”

 

“Closure”, Newt nods. He had been on a ship by the time MACUSA had found the mangled, fresh corpse of Percival Graves inside his own closet, and his brother had been called almost as immediately after. He'd been all alone at the burial.

 

“Grindelwald is a murderer, and a fascist. He needs to be brought down before he starts a war again”, but there’s more to it, he can tell. _Selfish reasons._ And so, Newt leaves the pause alive until Theseus adds, “and you know Perce had told me about the boy.”

 

Newt had known only after Theseus had came back, still reeking of days-old brandy and with red-rimmed eyes. When they had swapped stories and reasons to mourn for the first time, before the Obscurus sightings had convinced him Credence Barebone was alive and needed saving, and made him pull his older brother into this.

 

He wonders often what would’ve happened, had Percival Graves managed to bring Credence out of the church and into their world.

 

But this same conversation, they _had_ had it before so many times. It's as if Theseus had a need to both justify himself and let himself bleed while keeping up with a front of strength every time - As if he didn't know the first creature Newt had learnt to read was _him._ Humans were dangerous, and they were difficult to relate to for him. But his older brother had been his first model for their language.

 

And Theseus, going through long-scripted motions, was about to argue making it all about ‘This Hunt’ and his hate, politics and revenge. So it’s obvious the pronoun falls from his lips without his permission when he finishes it instead with:

 

“He’s all I have left from Perce.”

 

And Newt says nothing but his heart _breaks,_ and he pulls his brother out of the Pensieve right then.

  


* * *

 

 

 **#14 - FIRE**  


 

Meyers Hof in Berlin was the closest Credence had came to going back to Pike Street. Seeing the misery unfolding before his eyes, multiplied by the recent crisis, feels more like a punishment than anything else.

 

His chest is growing tighter with disgust in every step, the dark magic nestled between his ribs recoiling _._ The very scent of this place makes him want to throw up, past and present blurring, and suddenly the open-sewer rush of East River is right behind him, merging German into English and Italian and Irish and Yiddish…

 

He had escaped a place like this. He had. Knowing it’s behind him doesn’t help his deep need to set fire the entire district.

 

Credence checks the address scrawled in his pocketbook, and goes in, goes down to the basement of one of the buildings. He finds the door already open.

 

People are dying. People are dying _slowly_.

 

He sees them dressed in rags, with a glow of hunger in their eyes. He sees children with too-sharp cheekbones huddling against their parents, if they have them, and some others playing with a bunch of dirty socks tied into a ball and charmed to float. There’s a dented cauldron bubbling in a corner, and the scent tells him from the doorway it's not a potion, but the same bone-and-potatoes soup Credence still could taste in his sleep.

 

He had eaten it each Friday of his former life since Mary Lou Barebone adopted him at four.

 

They all turn to him as soon as he crosses the threshold, and he swallows - mouth dry, pulse buzzing in anxiety.

 

Credence always had had eyes and ears, and paid attention to what people in Two Bridges talked about. He knows there’s books, many books and bulletins and pamphlets that talk of more just, better worlds - like the state of Grace the Apostles had lived in, neither rich nor poor and sharing everything. He just doesn’t know their names. Gellert doesn’t like that he keeps asking for reading material, exhausted of his own ignorance, but he does provide it. As long as he curates it first.

 

For a long moment, he’s incapable of finding his voice. He knows his mission. It’s just, he’s never been so unsure it’s Gellert’s Revolution what will help these people.

 

But between the tar of Pike Street sticking to his shoes in the middle of this Berlin tenement and the fury licking at his heels, his guts-- When he opens his mouth to preach Gellert’s Word, it sounds incensed. _Incendiary_ enough to feel like Truth, and like a promise of freedom to share with those who are willing to listen.

 

The _Omnilingua_ spell his lover had cast on him is starting to wear off by the end. Credence feels his tongue as tired as his body and his mind, foreign phonemes and familiar scenes getting tangled down his throat. Where was he?

 

_Where was he, really?_

 

“Is this really just the Muggles’ fault?”, someone asks by the back, and all Credence can do is to nod.

 

He doesn’t notice the question had been asked in English until its speaker stands, tall and redhaired and giving him the shakiest smile.  


 

* * *

 

 

 

**#15 - FLEXIBLE**

  


The meeting runs smoothly enough Theseus is hushing his own sighs and grimaces all through Credence Barebone’s speech, deep in dark thoughts about Europe’s future, the impending certainty of a new war so soon after the last one.

 

When his contact at the _Magiregierung_ had told him about the assembly for Grindelwald’s sympathizers, she had also warned him to not expect the intervention of Aurors. No police, magical or otherwise, ever went into the depths of Berlin’s slums. Neither government cared. There were no funds. There were talks of uprising in hushed tones and screamed speeches, in corridors and Parliament seats and through Old Blood families looking for a chance to shine anew in prestige and power.

 

So he stands up, prepared to make questions, plant a seed of doubt. To tail Credence afterwards if he could, and swallow his disappointment ‘till the next time if he couldn’t.

 

When the raid breaks into the basement despite all prognosis, it’s far too late to interrupt anything but whatever lingering doubts these people would still have. And Theseus, Theseus snarls a curse, and runs across the confusion of blasting hexes and screams to catch Credence by the wrist.

 

What he and Newt are doing, this _hunt,_ isn’t being done under the jurisdiction of any government. And if they imprison this boy here, there will be no helping him.

 

MACUSA had, after all, already tried to kill him.

 

Credence had, after all, already become an assassin and arsonist for the most noted Dark Wizard of their time.

 

He jumps them from Mitte to Britz to Marienfelde to Wittenau until the names of the districts and the Apparition cues all blur into one inside his head, dumping them in the depths of an alley in the middle of a Schöneberg he knows by heart, from far happier circumstances.

 

The boy is throwing up until there’s nothing left to retch, still holding onto his lapels, and in all honesty Theseus isn’t so used to muddying his tracks he isn’t tempted to do the same.

 

_He has just helped a murderer escape the Aurors sent to arrest him._

 

He closes his eyes and counts again, grounds himself in present time and present place. _Schöneberg, Berlin. Alleyway behind the El Dorado. May 19th. Six in the afternoon, maybe, maybe, maybe…_ He waves his wand and vanishes the vomit off their clothes. Newt doesn’t care at all for what he wears as long as he can stand the fabric, but Theseus _did_ take his blue overcoat without permission.

 

“Who are you?”, Credence asks, eyes wild with fear and nausea and Merlin knows what else. He lets go of Theseus and pushes him away with the kind of strength he wouldn’t have anticipated from such thin wrists.

 

“I just didn’t want you getting caught”, Theseus replies, putting the wand away. Spreading his palms, too - as harmless as he can make himself.

 

What a risky bet he has just taken, out of a gut feeling. If his instincts hadn’t saved him so many times before… He’s just hoping his admitted _obsession_ with Perce’s last wish didn’t cloud them that much.

 

 _“Who are you?”,_ Credence repeats, harder, rawer, and this time there’s a shadow of black and embers swirling between his fingers.

 

“A friend”, Theseus swallows, forcing himself to hold his gaze. There’s honey under the white veil of it, he’s sure. “You just don’t know me well enough yet.”

 

This boy is enough of a wildcard there had been no further plan than _talking_ ‘till this point. Improvising is one thing, but from now on Theseus is pretty sure he has just ran out of road.

  
And Credence looks at him, _really looks at him,_ and goes “oh.”

 

 

* * *

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TELL ME WHAT YOU THINK sdkgjskld I may be #OLD but I do live for validation 8D Every comment is welcome and cherished and the kind of thing I read when I'm down and feeling like I Can't Write At All so. Throw me questions! Throw me your Extra Kudos, capslocks, and rotten tomatoes! I'm so thankful for everyone who's along for the ride here ♥ ♥ ♥


	6. Shell-Shock's Prayer

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Twice is coincidence, thrice is a curse. But this man knows Newt Scamander, and it removes something down Credence’s throat he can’t identify.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Asdghsjdkh life has been hectic |'DD Sorry! To make up for it, I've got a double update, so stay tuned? I'll be posting another chapter tomorrow /o/Getting into the meat of the story soon~

* * *

 

 

 

**#16 - FLYING**

  
  


Footsteps quietly creaking on wooden floors used to kick Credence’s alert systems into permanent blaring, not so long ago. He used to stay so still back then, not daring to breathe in case the plume told Ma outside his room, somehow, he was still awake.

 

Still alive.

 

He’s terrible at dates, but even in such a gray sunset, Credence is sure they’re in spring. Have been, at least, since Gellert deemed him fit enough to roam the real world after spending the last of winter in Nurmengard. This is not a time for freezing.

 

He’s terrible at names, but he has heard Gellert speaking more than once of the man who had threatened his foothold across the Atlantic. MACUSA isn’t free of his influence, will never be, really - but he had had to left his vantage point inside it thanks to Newt Scamander.

 

And he’s terrible at faces, but Credence knows this isn’t him despite the coat, just as surely as he has seen this long-haired redhead before - affable and cocky and offering him beer back at France, maybe even the same one who had looked like the portrait of St. Michael hanging by the entrance of a countryside church.

 

Twice is coincidence, thrice is a curse. But this man knows Newt Scamander, and it removes something down Credence’s throat he can’t identify. 

 

“You shouldn’t be helping me”, he warns. Kindness never came without a price and he’s not in a position to afford any bestowed upon him. Not even now. 

 

“Why do you say so?”, the stranger asks, and Credence has to stomp down on the urge of screaming to his face, ‘ _ you know why.’ _ By this point he still can’t do that without an instruction. There’s an art to letting his own repressed temper go off.

 

“It’s illegal”, he says instead, hating very much the way it quietly sounds like  _ ‘it’s a sin’.  _ “And you don’t know me.”

 

“Is that a requirement for giving someone a hand?”, the man shrugs, completely ignoring the first part of the argument, and then offers him a smile. “I already know your name, though.” There’s a pause, before he adds, “you gave it to me.”

 

_ ‘It’s not mine’,  _ Credence wants to tell him, and the phrase multiplies like a sentence inside his mind.

 

He doesn’t get to say anything. There it is - the creaking in his floorboards, the muffled sound of several Apparition cracks going off outside the alley. 

 

Credence swallows a growl, and the frost in his veins, and shifts so quickly there’s no time for cutting.

 

When  _ They _ pick up the man in their tendrils for safekeeping before flying away, it’s just an afterthought.

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

**#17 - FOOD**

  
  


“What are you doing in Vienna?” Newt never raises his voice but the alarm in it is still plain to hear, gets a shiver out of Theseus. “I… I can’t Apparate to Vienna, it’s too far away.”

 

“Newt. Newt, I’m okay.”

 

“I would hope so, since you’ve found a way to call.”

 

“Newt, don’t be like this. I didn’t-- expect to end up here either, honest. I’m just happy we were in a hotel that had _a_ _phone_ at all, I’ve got no clue of where’s Our part of this city”

 

The cafe owner gives Theseus a look and taps at his watch. He promptly ignores him in favor of assuaging a Newt who, despite his vocal guarantees of  _ not being worried _ , wants to meet up again as soon as possible. He isn’t sure he succeeded. His voice had sounded far too flat to reassure him.

 

He pays for the call and sits down for a pick-me-up. Vienna and its coffeehouses are world-wide famous and yet he’s going to order either tea or a whiskey, hopefully both if luck would have it. He isn’t sure his nerves could take caffeine anytime soon.

 

When the Obscurus had grabbed him, brought him inside its terrifying mass of sand and ashes, Theseus had been sure its swirling fractals would be the last thing he saw.

 

Obscuri feed on magic, and life if there isn’t any left. He had seen what they could do to buildings, and yet it wasn’t half as terrifying as what they could do to  _ people.  _ He had felt its dark tendrils holding onto him, grazing over his skin until all he could feel were paralysis and ice.

 

And then he had realized they weren’t grazing  _ on it. _

 

Merlin knew what flight speed could one of these creatures achieve. They had been in Berlin about an hour ago? Theseus can’t do math in his head like that and frankly doesn’t want to either.

 

The Obscurus had spat him out on yet another alleyway, and he had barely managed to catch sight of Credence, the Obscurial,  _ Perce’s boy  _ looking at him with the world’s least expressive face before he disappeared with a frou frou of his expensive coat and turned back into a stormcloud. He had been shivering too hard to do anything about it.

 

His Earl Grey-and-Scotch arrives promptly, and Theseus uses the chance to also ask for a  _ sachertorte.  _ He hadn’t been thrown into a winter like that since 1916, his heart remains numb while his body is screaming for sugar and chocolate the way it did whenever he had to visit Azkaban for Ministry business.

 

And he isn’t sure his mind is quite  _ there _ either, honest.

 

Berlin and Prague, and Vienna and Prague can both be done in two long-distance Apparition jumps - usually the limit before the caster was too exhausted to stay awake. Newt and him had agreed to meet up in front of the Astronomical Clock. For the time being, all he could do was focusing on taking care of himself. On getting a room, getting an actual meal into his system, maybe also celebrate he didn’t  _ become  _ one. Think of all the implications it had for their hunt an Obscurial who could travel this way.

 

Biting into his cake, Theseus wishes he could’ve told Newt all of this over the phone and be done with it. His little brother was going to be  _ upset. _

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

**#18 - FOOT**

 

 

Kneeling is something Credence is used to.

 

Gellert strokes his hair, muttering praise and he can forget himself a little. There’s something more than a little blasphemous to it, but the first thing Credence had done as soon as he had reached Nurmengard was running to his study, throwing himself at his feet.

 

The mission, Aurors and all, had been successful. He had made sure to tell Gellert so before his voice had started to shake. It had seemed to be enough to please him this time, his lover had shushed him. He always knew Credence is terrible at speaking, but he trusts him so much he’d make him into his Prophet.

 

_ Thou art my battle axe and weapons of war - for with thee will I break in pieces the nations, and with thee will I destroy kingdoms. _

 

It had been well-earned. It had. The stench of Meyers Hof was still sticking to Credence’s tongue in the crisp air of this mountain fortress, pushing his mind back to New York, and to every beating Mary Lou Barebone had given him. To starvation, the darkness of the cellar, the flu he had survived at twelve either out of a Miracle or to keep the Punishment going.   
  


He had prayed so much and for so long for Deliverance. By the foot of his bed, in front of the altar, kneeling so Ma spared his face from the belt.

 

Gellert had taught him to cope, had plied him with food and warmth and potions to keep his nightmares at bay. Had sworn to him he’d erase his scars, too, once their Work was done.

 

Kindness was bought, and he finally had something to give so he could earn it.

 

The stranger hadn’t asked for anything in return. Why should I not help, I don’t have to know your name to do so, and distrust had made Credence bristle. But a favor was a favor, and he had spat him out in Vienna - safe. And far away from Germany, to throw him away from his trail.

 

The Obscurus had begged him for a meal all the way there, desperate to taste the copperbright shine of him.

 

“My boy, you seem to have gone somewhere else”, Gellert says.

 

“Pike Street, sir”, Credence replies, and leans his cheek against his lover’s knee.

  
  


 

* * *

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Comments are my literal lifeblood, guys ;3; Please do tell me if you're still around? Maybe it's because this is a crackship, but sdkjgs... 8'D;;;
> 
> See you tomorrow!


	7. Memory and Chance

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Too many years repressing your rage", Gellert says. "Let go, let go, let go…" And Credence, he’s a weapon already so tired of killing people.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So the real life keeps kicking my ass |DD Sorry for the wait, guys. I have this thing ready 'till Chapter 09, and a WIP from 10 to 12, and yet... Welp.
> 
> Thank you so much for your support and patience, to those who keep reading ♥
> 
>   
>    
> 

* * *

 

 

 

**#19 - GRAVE**

  
  


June in Naples is so hot Theseus has woven wards into his waistcoat and his shirt, eschewing even a light jacket. He had lost the tie somewhere during May. He’s still in no hurry to rummage through his luggage and find it.

 

_ ‘Pretty sure there’s a connection in there, that surname is unusual and it has history. I’ll keep investigating, but from now on I don’t think I can give you more details, unless it’s in person. Can’t do anything for a No-Maj, and…’ _

 

The war feels like yesterday these days. Grindelwald’s connection to European fascism disturbs him. He didn’t seem to be  _ causing _ political disturbances. It’s more like he’s been using the Muggles’ already tenuous grasp on peace to shake up the magical communities. Struggling nations affect everyone, and...

  
_ ‘... the marks in Barebone’s hands are too plentiful to be by accident, it’s hard to stomach. Can’t wrap my head around the motives of a mother who would hurt her children this way. They’re called the New Salem, Thes, but there’s nowhere to grab this case from yet. Goldstein has been begging to prove herself, and…’ _

 

Credence’s trail had gotten steadily blurrier since their last encounter. To not speak of Grindelwald. It has been ages since anyone had seen him, and even though he keeps his contacts from his times in the Ministry, it’s discouraging. The connection he’s making here is...

 

_ ‘... kept coming across him. Might as well start do it on purpose. He truly seems to be a good kid. I certainly wouldn’t be half as kind, having led such a life.’ _

 

Twenty dead. The police are blaming the Camorra, and the Camorra are blaming each other. There’s wizards involved in the organization, it’s known, but nobody  _ dares _ to mess with these people who laugh in the face of the Statute of Secrecy.

 

_ ‘Thes, I think Credence isn’t a No-Maj.’ _

 

The head of Naples’ Aurors ushers him into the autopsia room with a finger upon her lips, and Theseus - War hero, deserting Senior Auror, has to repress a shiver. 

 

“This wasn’t a wizard”, he says, and  _ fuck. _ He’s never wished so hard to be mistaken.

 

All over the skin of these bodies, a painting of darkened fractal scars. __  
  


 

* * *

 

 

 

**#20 - GREEN**

 

  
Baia Trentaremi is a beautiful place and on a weekday, it’s also far away from central Naples it’s  _ quiet. _

 

All Credence has ever wanted is quietness, and through the eternal roaring of New York City and the howling winds of Nurmengard, no matter the season, he doesn’t get much of it.

 

This sea is, too, different from everything he knows. It calls to him in ways the Upper Bay never did. Calais, he only saw it in passing. Summer has tinted the foliage on the cliffs with shades of yellow, but the green remains enough it mixes with the horizon. It gleams from blue to turquoise to emerald, almost until the point the waves lick at his feet.

 

When Credence summons the Obscurus, he’s a leading voice in Their chorus. But he’s no master of it. The rage inside his belly never goes away for long, it keeps flaring again and again.  _ Too many years repressing it _ , Gellert says.  _ Let go, let go, let go… _

 

_ For me?,  _ and it’s not really a request.

 

Twenty dead. Men and women, and those were evil. A crime syndicate like Manhattan’s gangsters, Muggles and Wizards alike engaging in a bloody war between clans for money and power, holding entire towns hostage. Paying men like Shaw for safety, killing the ones who wouldn’t bow. Does it even matter whether he can understand why Gellert sent him to them? They would've helped overthrow the Statute, as far as he know.

 

But Gellert's the one with a vision. And with the Sight.

 

The children among them, though, he still wouldn’t have been able to justify. He’s a weapon already so tired of killing people. Hasn’t even been a year.

 

“You were very sloppy”, someone says behind him. It’s an accent rounded around the edges, Credence doesn’t have to turn around to  _ know.  _ His fingers start to smoke before he finds words to reply.

 

“That’s convenient for you, though,” and thrice is a curse, and four times are a reason to regret having let this man live. “Auror.”

 

This, this is an acceptable outlet for his anger. Credence had been given reasons to despise Aurors even before Gellert had taken him in.

 

“... No, actually. I’m not. And I’m a shitty liar, just look at my face. You’ll know it’s true.”

 

So Credence does, and there he is. Redheaded, disheveled in the summer heat, all fit, freckled forearms. Sharp jawline, smiling face. Carrying himself like a soldier even in shirtsleeves.

 

It does look like he’s sincere - In this one thing, at least. But he says nothing.

 

“My name is Theseus”, the stranger provides. “If you were wondering.

 

“I wasn’t.”  _ How did you find me, how did you, how long have you been following me. _

 

“That was nice of you”, Theseus continues, and his next words make Credence swear between clenched teeth. “What you did for those kids.”

 

“The ones I devoured?”, and he’s provoking this man on purpose. But that’s more than alright. He can fight back now, six months of training have cleansed the fear off him.

 

“The ones you left in custody at Nisida", Theseus counters the gambit, rubbing Credence's nose into the truth. "Granted, a reformatory isn’t exactly a great place to live. But maybe they’ll have a chance to grow up to be other than Camorra. And starvation kind of sucks.”

 

So that’s how he had been found.

 

Dark-haired, pale American. Barely knew enough Italian to not get lost, dumping the survivors of a massacre right in the _ Istituto,  _ a cove and half away from this one. Of course someone had noticed. Sloppy indeed.

 

“Go away, Theseus”, he drawls. Curse his bleeding heart. As if anyone would have done the same for him.

 

“I think”, Theseus says carefully, “you really don’t want to be here.”

 

“I like this beach.”

 

“I don’t mean the beach. I mean, there’s an out from all of this.” He spreads his palms again. No wand, no threat. “We can figure it out”

 

That’s a provocation, right back at him - and Credence is angry, defiant enough to look into Theseus’ eyes. He finds acceptance in the green of them.

 

When he swallows, it tastes like frost. It spreads down his throat, pools low in his guts. And this man, he keeps smiling.

 

He summons the Obscurus and flies.

  
  


* * *

 

 

 

**#21 - HEAD**

 

  
Somewhere during the war, Theseus had discovered the head upon his shoulders was far better than he had thought. Tactics and research came easily to him when they weren’t strewn all abstract over a desk, and specially considering the stakes were so high.

 

His heart, though, Perce always said it would be the death of him. He had started to agree only after they were all home, weary and finally noticing both their own shredded neural systems. Muggles would find a label for it later on, noticing the patterns of terrors and nightmares and flashbacks - but Shell-Shock still had no cure in sight.

  
Theseus had loved Percival Graves from 1915, proud and volunteering from across the ocean, to 1919, when he had left him broken in England - Sailing back to MACUSA, and to the weight of his family name.

 

He still does. This was a man whose burial he had attended seven months ago, and Theseus still can’t tear him out of his chest.

 

They had worked so well as a whole, when they had been together. He had been good as their heart, and Perce had been good as their head. Even when it was Theseus who had led their squad, through strategy and logistics, there had been no such thing as  _ acceptable losses -  _ and he had mourned every man they had lost _. _

 

And then Perce was gone, and he had gotten to remember how being  _ rational _ felt like amidst the hurt.

 

And then Perce and him had gone back to the start, met up again. It had been easy to be friends with this man he had shared so much with. It had been hell to be friends with the past lover his heart still called for.

 

And then, he had gone and failed Perce.

 

So now he plans. And investigates. And there’s no stone left unturned in his search for clues - for Credence Barebone had turned into a stormcloud in front of his eyes during their last encounter, and left him on an Italian beach to fly back to the Dark Wizard who had killed his best friend.

 

He knows of Credence’s life enough to see plenty well how he’d think Gellert Grindelwald was a step up.

 

Theseus looks at maps, stays up late reviewing their short encounters, worries his unworriable brother. His is a cool head, his is an aching chest. He didn’t want to fail  _ Perce’s boy. _

 

Where to, now?

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you're enjoying this as much as I'm having fun writing it ♥ ♥ ♥ 
> 
> *Insert literal plea for comments here ;3;*


	8. At Midnight, At Noon

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Credence has permission to ask for a single inch when he has been good. But at his core, he isn’t. Hunger is a terrible thing, and he can't, _won't_ take a mile - but he does dare to steal whatever space to breathe he can once in a while.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The release date of Fantabi2 keeps approaching so, this time for real, y'all get a double feature today and tomorrow. Fic rating up starting from now!
> 
> This chapter features: Porn, Newt ttly not being worried for his brother, and 1927 culture with Paris as a background.
> 
> I hope you enjoy it ♥

* * *

 

 

 

**#22 - HOLLOW**

 

  
Hunger could be a terrible thing. It’s the place where Greed and Lust and Gluttony interlink, inescapable - it could make a body ache to the point of madness.

 

Credence goes back to Gellert, always.

 

He’s been starved of the world and from Gellert, he drinks it. For touch, and Gellert gives him so much of it Credence drowns and so does his mind. And for more, always.

 

“What has gotten into you?”, his lover teases him, and Credence still struggles with the shyness the other man finds either endearing or worth discarding, depending on his mood. But he steps away from his crumbled clothes on the floor, and walks the distance from door to desk with a straight back - hating his own naked skin and liking the way he’s being devoured by mismatched eyes.

 

“Summer”, he says, and  _ he had been at peace that afternoon _ . He straddles the other man turning spite into all the confidence he doesn’t have.

 

“Then I should send you south more often”, Gellert replies simply, and slides a hand down his bare chest. Stopping to roll a nipple between his fingers, kissing his neck, and Credence’s still  _ so silent. _

 

Gellert bites him, and he arches, inhaling sharply before settling down flush against him. He swallows a whine, but there’s no point in stopping the rush of his own desire. He knows it pleases his lover, how quickly he grows hard under his kisses, under his hands.

 

It gets proven when Gellert waves away the documents on his desk and  pushes him down, spreads him over the surface.

 

“This is getting ridiculous, you know”, he comments. “Should I really spoil you every time you come home?”

 

Humiliation corrodes like acid, too, and Credence hides his face the best he can like this. It burns. His eyes do, too, but he swallows it all down, and Gellert sees it. Presses a kiss to his cheek.

 

“Shh”, he murmurs. “My miracle, you know I don’t mind.”

 

He opens Credence’s legs for him, and settles in between. And then stops. “I’m very sorry”, he adds. “Let me change.”

 

Summoning his wand and waving it with no words, the blond on his hair starts to fade into saltpepper black. Until Credence grabs his wrist, heart beating wildly.

 

“No”, he says. “Your face. With your face now, sir. Please…”

 

He hadn’t been allowed his own decisions until after the church had burnt. The things he did now, they were all his choices.

 

And this, this has pleased Gellert. He can tell.

 

His lover slicks him through magic and blunt fingers with no quarter until Credence loses all shame and begs him to get inside him, dripping his need all over his belly. He thrusts in and makes him wait until Credence squirms and whimpers, and digs his heels against his thighs, frantic for his cock.

 

When Gellert fucks him, the wild pace and the pleasure crackling all over his body like a thunderstorm make Credence cry out and forget what it feels like to be empty. This time, he keeps his sight on him all the way so he doesn’t forget who’s doing it.

 

Blond hair, a blur of violet and brown, Gellert’s grin amidst the growls of his passion. Credence only closes his eyes when he comes hard enough to go blind in bliss and heartbreak.

 

(Maybe he’s a glutton for punishment, too)

  
  


* * *

 

 

 

**#23 - HONOR**

 

  
“Are you fucking kidding me? You’re taking me off the Task Force?”

 

“ _ Will you sit down, Scamander. _ You were obviously affected by Grindelwald’s most recent blow”, and it’s a bloody gift the Director doesn’t say the word  _ failure _ . Theseus would keep screaming for not stopping Grindelwald before he got to America for the longest time. “You’re my Senior Auror. I’m not risking you with missions you’re in no shape to take, nor risking  _ Europe  _ by keeping you on the post. Stay home. There’s plenty of work you can do in England.”

 

“I quit”

 

“... Beg your pardon?”

 

“I’m quitting.”

 

“Scamander, I’m putting you on leave. You have two months, liable for an extension, and then you can come back, and we can all forget this conversation happened.”

 

Newt taps Theseus’ shoulder. The memory freezes at once, and his brother, startled, turns to face him.

 

Behind him, his double keeps the grimace, stuck in time the same way the real one is stuck on memories.

 

“You miss it”, Newt says softly, taking a guess. “London. Your life.”   
  


His brother  _ likes  _ traveling. But this is a hunt, and it’s also looking like the prelude of a war… and what Theseus likes the most is still having a home to come back to, once his feet got all road-worn.

  
“I don’t miss a thing”, Theseus avows. “Except my best friend.” He waves a hand and this January scene fades, leaving Newt and him standing on a void regaining its silvery hue second by second.   
  


Newt winces. “I  _ can _ confiscate the Pensieve and put it inside my suitcase, you know. You wouldn’t find it there.”

 

“I would. And then you’d be pissed at me for breaking into your stuff. Let’s avoid that whole argument, we don’t need it at all.”

 

“What are you even looking for in here? There’s no way this will help you track anyone.”

 

Theseus shrugs and grabs Newt’s hand to pull them back into the dingy cabin they’re sleeping at.

 

“Motivation”, he replies, and vanishes the Pensieve with a wave of his wand.

  
  


* * *

 

 

 

**#24 - HOPE**

  
  


Paris has never, ever been gentle to Credence. But it’s a break, and one far away from Vienna to boot.

 

He had been sent to destroy the  _ Kanzleramt _ \- Seat of the Austrian magical government, built right in the basement of the Palace of Justice. The first attack of that scale in Gellert’s careful, long game.

 

Daybreak found him arriving to the city, and the sight awaiting to greet him was of burning flames, and the Muggle police shooting people blindly in the fray.

 

He’s tired of the sizzling of human flesh, and the scent of blood has never failed to set his teeth on edge. It remains one of his first memories. Weeks and months go by and it keeps looking like it’s one he’ll never be allowed to forget.

 

And Gellert is going to be so disappointed.

 

Escaping for a single day seems like a small transgression to make. The Quartier Latin is nothing like Manhattan and its straight lines, but there’s a certain kind of Blessing in getting to discover a place whose streets he hasn’t memorized yet. Getting lost is a pleasure when he can fly.

His magic is rotten, he’ll never hold a wand. But the Obscurus can take him anywhere swift as a wind and so, he’ll take it.

 

Credence shakes the ache off his feet after an entire morning of wandering around. He counts the freshly-exchanged Francs in his pocket and wonders about weathering the scorching heat of Mid-July somewhere. He’s decently dressed enough he wouldn’t be denied entrance anyplace he chooses, and that’s yet another difference with Before he’ll never get tired of.   
  


A sharply designed poster lures him into the shade of a picture palace with a promise of escape. Cartoons, cartoons are light and this one is  _ color-tinted.  _ And longer than any others he knows of.

 

Ma had never had kind words towards cinema, and the temptation to sneak into a theatre back when he was a teen had been promptly beaten out of him by an usher the only time he tried. Gellert, who derides anything Muggle, and picks Credence’s books so he can make the most of fixing his lost education, doesn’t has any kinder ones.

 

He has permission to ask for a single inch when he has been good. But at his core, he isn’t. And he can't, _won't_ take a mile - but he does dare to steal whatever space to breathe he can once in a while.

 

As much as he’s enjoying his discovery of the written words, he’s still a slow reader. But he does his best to watch a movie whenever he’s on missions alone now.   
  


_ The Adventures of Prince Achmed _ lasts a bit over an hour of far-away lands and magical quests, and by the time lights turns on and the stage musicians take their bow, Credence is having it hard to return to reality.

There’s so many things in this world designed to overwhelm him. An overabundance of  people, of life stories that promise nor closure nor sense, noise that dissonates. A failing faith unveiling the uncertainty of happy endings.

 

The audience is still politely clapping when a little girl in the front row jumps to her feet and on the seat to cheer. Something about her unbridled laughter hurts him, and he isn’t sure why.

 

And that’s when the blonde woman next to her turns to face Credence.

 

There’s shock underlining her open Cupid’s Bow, tensing her eyebrows. He feels so naked under her stare it forces him to look down, missing the moment the little girl takes off in a mad dash until she passes right by his side, brushing his arm.

 

It’s eighteen years of silence this time what nails him to his seat.

 

“Lu! Lucy! Wait for us, you little dynamo!”, and that’s a portly man rising from his seat as well, in pursue with the kind of grin Credence never, ever got in return for arrant disobedience.

 

Gellert... Gellert had told him…

 

People start pouring out of the picture palace, taking this happy family along with them. He remains immobile in his place for such a long time a worried usher comes to tap his arm, get his attention

 

“Monsieur? Monsieur? Est-ce que ça va?”

 

_ ‘Are you alright?’ _

 

Utterly sincere, Credence slumps further and replies with one of the few shreds of French he knows by heart, “je ne sais pas.”

 

_ ‘Modesty is alive.’ _

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ... Told y'all the meat of this fic was approaching. Hope for Credence comes in the shape of a reason to rebel :') I enjoy his suffering so. Also: My very favorite thing to get unstuck from Writer's Block is hours and hours of research until something clicks so... Yes, the Palace of Justice in Vienna did burn down in 1927, and The Adventures of Prince Achmed exists (and is awesome). 
> 
> Your support means the entire world to me! Comments and questions and extra kudos are more than welcome, and hell, I'd even take the rotten tomatoes by this point too. [Muffled _Please Let Me Get What I Want_ by The Smiths playing on the distance]


	9. Things Unsaid

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Credence exhales loudly. It might have been exasperation, or a very quiet laugh, and Theseus needs to know which one. And to keep building rapport. Maybe it’d be enough this time to just... Just grab him, and pull him away from the fascist that had taken Graves from both of them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys. I'm posting this basically to keep my word on the update dates this time /o/

* * *

 

 

**#25 - LIGHT**

 

  
Insomniac, listless, Newt doodles a puffskein on a spare piece of paper. It’s a hot night, and the breeze through the open hotel windows makes the flames of his candles flicker, enchanted or not.

 

His book is important to him. His book is important to him, but.

 

They’ve run out of leads again. Brussels is nice and Belgium indeed has amazing beer - and a far more amiable ambiance than literally anywhere in Germany he could think of right now. Newt just has never been that happy at cities. The outdoors suit him better the same way animals feel friendlier than people.

 

Merlin, it’s so late.

 

Fluttering wings making the shadows grow, a soft hooting, and he knows who this is before she crash-lands on the desk, sending paper and lead pencils flying everywhere. He hears Theseus gasping, sitting up on the bed.

 

“Go back to sleep”, he says, turning around. “It’s just an owl.”

 

He throws a jacket over his arm to offer the bird a place to perch on, and adds nothing else until Theseus slumps back and falls asleep again just as quickly as he had woken up.

 

“Cookie?”, he whispers, “do you have news?”

 

She extends her scaly leg to show off the roll of parchment tied there, all too dignified considering her messy arrival.

 

Hawk Owls are nomadic, long distance-flyers, fast and _so smart_ Newt’s pretty sure there’s more magic to them than to the common mailing bird. He gave one to Tina back in February, before the hunt, and as soon as he had known she was ditching MACUSA to keep Queenie safe.

 

She averaged the distance between Paris and London in five hours of flight, and had grown fond of Jacob so quickly he had been the one to name her. And she had never, ever failed to find either Theseus or him no matter where in Europe they were.

 

 _Just an owl._ Newt’s glad Theseus hadn’t contested it, and Cookie hadn’t been offended.

 

He gives her a treat from the baggie he permanently carries in one of his pockets. Unrolling the note reveals Queenie’s curly handwriting, tiny and neat so it’d fit its space:

 

 

> _‘To our esteemed Scandal Brothers:_
> 
> _The City Of Lights keeps treating us nicely! So well we might actually have a little bit to spare for youse._
> 
> _We spotted C. by the Quartier Latin earlier. He recognized Lu! Didn’t get close enough to talk, but Jake tailed him a bit while we got Teenie on the case, and. He might have a Trackback Pin on him now? Anyway either of you should come here real soon before he finds out._
> 
> _\-- Queen.'_

A slow grin springs past Newt’s exhaustion. He had sworn he’d let Theseus sleep a little longer, but this merits Apparating to France as soon as they were functional.

 

He turns the note around in case there’s more.

 

 

> _PS: Tina, by the way, looks a lot like she’s been missing Newt._
> 
> _(Write back to her for once, will you, hon?)_

 

“Oh”, he murmurs, and he can _feel_ how a blush is dawning all over his cheeks. “Well, then.”

 

He puts the note away, scritches under Cookie’s beak for focus until she nips at his finger. The galley proof still is stuck at the presses back home, but maybe he could give Tina a copy of the manuscript instead.

 

Promises are, after all, just words unless you keep them.  


 

* * *

 

 

 

**#26 - LOST**

 

  
Credence Barebone had been born stupid. Had a head stuffed full of cotton. Never had the right words; and the sound of traffic made him feel, sometimes, like the real world was behind an inch of glass and just as inaccessible as the food and warm clothes in the storefronts of Manhattan.

 

He had liked getting lost in the Bible, had been sinful in his study of the Word. Had a tendency to grow attached to the characters, and to repeat their stories to himself when he was bored for the pleasure of it instead of for their teachings.

 

Credence had been, back when it still mattered, enough of an heretic to picture happier endings for the ones he loved the most. Mr. Graves and all his wonders, they had made him feel like maybe he could have a different one, too.

 

He had dreamed, felt horribly guilty for his wishes for soft embraces and big, gentle hands caressing his hair. Tickling the base of his neck, all _there's so much more to you, my boy, let me take you away,_ mirages of things that would never happen. Credence had longed to discover the taste of his kisses to the point of being disgusted with himself, but he wouldn't have minded if Mr. Graves didn't correspond to his twisted desires as long as he could've stayed by his side.

 

 _“Why do you treat yourself so poorly, Credence?”,_ Mr. Graves had told him once. “ _You're not a servant. You're my friend.”_

 

How could anyone fault him for clinging to the fiction of a man who had never existed, honestly.

 

 _“Monsieur?_ Your drink.”

 

The bar snaps sharply back into focus.

 

Credence mumbles a _'merci’_ and reaches for the glass. Cradles it in his hands, trying to tune out the too-cheerful tune currently coming out of the piano by the corner, the sounds of conversation and laughter around him. At least, sitting by the bar it’s unlikely anyone will come to talk to him.

 

Drinking is a sin. So are murder and lying and sodomy, but those three were already etched in his soul before he had crossed the pond - the last one being on Gellert. Credence likes to think their discovery of how much alcohol soothed his anxiety was an accidental thing given how the older man loves indulgence and despises _excess._

 

There's, supposedly, a freedom of  sorts in Damnation. Once you're already marked for Hell, anything else you do shouldn't really matter, and yet he can't shed off the same guilt he had carried like shackles his entire life. The American passport Gellert had gotten for him says _Matthew Ariel Volkovich_ , but Ma had branded a name of her own choosing into his skin to delete all memory of a former one. He had lost his chance to be anything else. He can only hope Modesty had made it out of the church in time.

 

The girl that man had called ‘Lucy’ couldn't have been any other. Across an entire ocean and in the most unlikely place, and yet-- He’d never forget her face, her voice. The day he’d seen by mistake her adoption papers to read _Lucia Alessia Rossi._

 

Mary Lou Barebone had whipped him raw for that one and left him to rot in the coal cellar.  His little sister had slid down there in the dead of the night with a stolen slice of bread. He had promised that even if Ma erased her name off her brain the way she had done to him, he’d keep it safe.

 

Credence drinks and his second Tom Collins hits like a wave of loosening sugar and bitter citrus. He _is_ deliriously happy she’s alive, that she has found a family that at least _looks_ like they love her, calls her by her birth name. He hadn't seen Lucy laugh this freely in years.

 

He hopes she didn't remember the church at all. Magic can do such incredible miracles.

 

He drinks and does his absolute best to quash down the miserly part of him that feels _envy._ The grief of having lost his sister all over again. And the rage that has been eating down his guts whenever he remembers, Gellert had lied.

 

He had known who he'd be following. Isn't it his fault to be adrift?

 

_Stupid boy. Selfish boy._

 

He has missed his chances to die, and his chances to escape, and all there’s left is to stick to the road ahead of him. Wherever it took him.

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

**#27 - METAL**

 

 

Tina arrives at the Goldstein’s current residence a little after Newt and him had Apparated all the way from Belgium - On the verge of fainting, and with circles under her eyes darker than the rapidly fading night. Queenie rushes to assist her and Jacob, who is used to keeping a baker’s hours even during Shabbat, immediately disappears to the kitchen to bring her cocoa kept warm through magic, and a sufganiyot from yesterday’s batch.

 

Someone had been illegally breeding doberman with crups, and racking up a fortune running them through the No-Maj, _Moldu_ dog fighting rings, she tells them. Her partner and her had been tailing their current suspect since the past morning and through the entire night, getting an eyeful of the carnage in the process.

 

The stench had been so strong she can still taste the iron, she says.

 

“Thes”,  Newt calls him apart, speaks in hushed tones, “I want to talk to him too. But I don’t think it’s a good idea if both of us go at the same time. It’s unexpected, we might overwhelm him.”

 

It makes sense, and Theseus knows his brother meant every word. It makes even more sense when he goes to sit by Tina’s side at the couch, attempts comfort via light physical contact - a hand softly rubbing her shoulder.

 

Queenie comes to him in quiet understanding, and gives him the mirror Tina had tied to the Trackback Pin. The Apparition cue shows Credence is alone, and where.

 

Theseus had been to the city before. During the war, during missions as he climbed up the Auror ranks. The view from the top of Notre Dame still takes his breath away: At his left the Quartier Latin is a darkened mass of tin roofs and warm gas lights. At his right, the Marais of a reputation as questionable as it was fun, gleaming so much brighter against the iron-grey of the sky, bouncing white and yellow on the surface of the Seine.

 

Paris is beautiful, Theseus thinks.

 

Sitting by the border of the rooftop, with his long legs hanging off the railings, is Credence Barebone.

 

“I know you’re there”, the boy, Perce’s boy, tells him without turning around.

 

Theseus’ heart stops for a second, before raising both hands. “Yep. You got me.”

 

“Wizards”, the boy continues, “are never as silent as they think they are.”

 

“And here I was thinking my Apparition was stellar”, he replies, but Credence isn’t moving to attack him, or even to turn around to see his face. So he dares, and teases a little - _“Sloppy,_ then?”

 

The boy exhales loudly. It might have been exasperation, or a very quiet laugh, and Theseus _needs_ to know which one. And to keep building rapport. Maybe it’d be enough this time to just...

 

Just grab him, and pull him away from the fascist that had taken Graves from both of them.

 

“May I come closer?”, he asks, but something had to be wrong from the way Credence replies.

 

“Do what you want”, and he exhales, and for a moment, Theseus swears he sees either steam or cigarette smoke spiraling out of his mouth. “You could sit. I don’t care, sir.”

 

That ‘sir’ sounds like such an afterthought, he thinks, but he goes, and his every step clangs metallic on the cathedral rooftop, heavier than he’d like. This boy hasn’t done anything to harm him yet, they are doing this good-will thing, and… The view is, somehow, even more breathtaking, so close to the ledge.

 

It’s clear that Credence hasn’t been smoking. He smells like alcohol instead, but sitting less than a meter away from him, Theseus can see he’s lucid. Fever-lucid, almost, exhaustion painting him so sallow he understands, all of a sudden, the sight Perce must’ve seen over a year ago in Broadway, under the rain.

 

For the sudden hurt in his own chest, though, Theseus doesn’t have that much of an explanation.

 

“I like it here”, the boy tells him, as if he was trying to prevent Theseus from asking first like back in Italy. And then he goes, and adds, “I used to hate heights. It was stupid from me to do so.”

 

Theseus bites his lip, something in the wording bothering him deeply. “I don’t think fear is a stupid thing”, and why are they taking this conversation there? “Nothing stupid about your brain warning you of danger, so you do leave.”

 

The fact his own brain is twisted and keeps screaming of mortal peril every time a scent or a sight takes him back to the War is something he’ll take to his grave, though. And even more when Credence huffs again.

 

“You keep following me”, he says. “Are you here for the Vienna thing? I left you there once.”

 

The burning of the _Kanzleramt_ was something Theseus had came to know through yesterday’s Muggle news. He shakes his head, and something must’ve showed in his face, because the boy, Perce’s boy, says, “Good. That wasn’t me.”

 

“Oh?”

 

“It should’ve been me”, he shrugs, nonchalant and _empty_. “The Muggles got there first, so it’s a failure. It’ll be counted as one.”

 

The quiet sentence runs a shiver down Theseus’ spine. The easy admission of arson is already hard to swallow. He’s also seen before what Gellert Grindelwald does to the underlings who _fail,_ and the way he plays Credence like his follow, like his doll.

 

Dawn approaches. The sky is turning to steel, dotted in feathered clouds. He sighs, and when he opens his eyes again, the boy is looking straight at him, inexpressive like a ritual mask.

 

“Don’t pity me”, he says. “You know who I am.”

 

 _‘More than you know’,_ Theseus wants to say, and he’s so, so very tempted to just drop all pretenses and tell this boy why he is here, that Graves had existed, that Graves had _loved him._

 

His tongue stings when he bites it, and he hears himself saying instead, “So should I keep calling you Ariel, or…?”

 

“There’s no reason for you to call me anything”, Credence replies, careful. “Mr. Scamander.”

 

Daylight breaks somewhere in the east, adds its still-pale glint to the running Seine, and to every window in the city. It’s a sight that screams for attention, impossible to look away from.

 

Theseus realizes, distantly, the metal filigree of the Tour is visible from where they are.

 

Theseus realizes, with unavoidable unease, this boy has known for a while who he is.

 

Sunshine pours a gleam of gold in Credence Barebone’s curls next to him, livelier than everything else in him. When he stands up, Theseus would swear he hears a turn of rusty cogs as he straightens his spine.

 

“I can’t tell you to stop following me, isn’t it?”, the boy says, seeking his gaze. There’s no ill will to it, and Theseus has an answer, but the words get caught in his throat, stuck in the clutter of everything he has to tell him, the pleas to _come home,_ or maybe to  _leave it;_ the complete catalog of his questions.

 

In the curve of that sad, sad smile, too.

 

And then there’s a cataclysm, bronze so loud it’s _artillery,_ and the next thing Theseus knows is that he’s grabbing Credence’s clothes, pulling and pushing him away from the barrage, drawing his wand and throwing a shield spell and _failing_ in mute terror, the echo under his feet like the earthquake of recoil until he isn't--

 

_Standing._

 

Theseus' last step misses the edge of the rooftop. He doesn't get to scream.

 

A flash of black and ice reaches for him, holding him tight.

 

When he opens his eyes again, he’s alone. Sitting on a bench on the gardens surrounding the cathedral, far away enough from the noise his wild panting finally, finally turns into a choked laughter that's pure hysteria.  _Goddamn bells._ He'd-- His brain, his fucking  _memories,_ they'd betrayed him over--  And Credence had _seen him._

 

(Credence had seen this, _and he'd saved him)._

 

Theseus buries his face into his hands. He would be feeling the lead inside his veins for a long time.

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter 10 is ready, and 11 only needs to be edited, and then 12 is 2/3 complete? I'm not posting next week because I wanna try and focus on "Blues Are[...]" (Gradence), but at least I'm not leaving this in too bad of a cliffhanger. I think.
> 
> ... I'd legit really want to know if there's anyone here still reading, though ^^;; I kind of hate to be all "BAWW NOBODY IS COMMENTING SO I WON'T UPDATE ANYMORE!!1!!" as if I were half my age and back at ff.net, but. Maybe I should just stash this in my Gdrive and give out links to the people who're interested? Idk. I adore this story, I wanna keep going, but it's looking a lot like I'd finish it for myself + two friends, and out of stubbornness. 
> 
> Gotta mull it over.


	10. Days Before You Came

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _'I like it here',_ Credence had sworn over and over to this man who kept following him, making promises that no way could be true.
> 
> Modesty, alive, haunts him in ways that make him want to scream at Gellert’s face that he Knows, breaking the standstill. So of course he stays his hand, and talks to Nagini instead.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey, honestly? A big shot out to everyone who commented last update ♥ I've decided to keep posting the thing for you, so... Truly, thank you so much! ^^ Meant to show y'all this on Friday but my job is kind of kicking me into the ground lately. Hope you guys do see this despite the Sunday update, and that you like it!
> 
>  
> 
>  

* * *

 

 

 

**#28 - NEW**  
  


 

 

_ Stains in color, the acrid taste of adrenaline. Nine. They are nine... _

 

Inside the Obscurus, Credence howls and a thousand voices echo him. He needs to fly faster. He doesn’t need to see to know how many are tailing him, matching Their speed, and he doesn’t want to engage. Not tonight. Gellert is going to be pissed, he can’t, he shouldn’t have been in France at all, and just as he hadn’t known how far he was willing to go just so he wouldn’t be a disappointment…

 

_ Faster. Higher. Humans brim with life and magic, but their shells are feeble. A million little things need to be kept in balance. Pressure, oxygen, temperature, the speed of the blood pumping through their veins. _ __  
  


He hadn’t known other people’s fear could be a spice.

 

He hadn’t known  _ his own  _ could be, either.

 

They wouldn’t let go and Credence knows the Obscurus is sizzling in red embers, crackling electric with static and friction and  _ Their _ fury. He’s sick and tired of the Task Force. He’s sick and tired of  _ Aurors. _   
  


_ Higher. Higher. _

 

They wouldn’t let go.

 

Credence takes a dive and the Obscurus rushes down in a black blur, faster than a freefall. The wind would’ve roared in his ears, his pulse would’ve spiked hard enough to break his heart, he would’ve gotten to watch the ground growing black and close and swift and  _ fatal-- _

 

They couldn’t die, so he wouldn’t.

 

_ Two down. They hadn’t wanted this. The Vessel despises unjustified killing, The Collective loathes to waste sustencance. _

  
So many things had changed since that first time Credence had been on the wrong end of a wand.

 

Through the woods, now,  and he can’t see but it doesn’t matter. He can uproot entire trees as long as he Wills it. He can phase through branches and foliage and ground without moving a single leave, too.

 

A smear of light goes out. And then another.

 

_ Seven now. Starvation means cold means stillness means death, and They are so very hungry. Their Vessel is good, Their Vessel feeds them, holds them, keeps them at bay so they don’t devour themselves-- _

 

Seven Aurors, and Credence wants to be done. So They would.

 

The abrupt stop at the next clear, it doesn’t look like the Task Force is expecting it either. Putting the breaks at this speed is--

 

“You are surrounded!”, one of them screams, wand pointed at Credence. His broom lies in pieces meters away, the fall has snapped his other forearm.

 

American accent, brown coat, and Credence, he has  _ such a bad memory.  _ But he doesn’t need more than this to spark up the embers of the Obscurus.

 

“You should leave”, he growls, showing teeth. Because he’s standing there on two feet, now, has two hands and a head and a mostly entire neural system. But all those years, he lived under the delusion of  _ being a person. _

 

Truth could be horrible, truth could be a kindness, Gellert has given him both. And he should do the same for these people.

 

He doesn’t need to cut himself to will the Obscurus out, and even less after this chase. But he will anyway - gets his blade out, grasps it straight. It has to look so funny, bringing a knife to a wandfight. Has to be the reason the Aurors close ranks instead of  _ fucking listening. _

 

He’ll give them a last chance, and.

 

“Barebone! Give up!”

 

He’s been called a Devil and a Wolf and a Storm, he’s been called  _ Ariel _ and  _ Vessel _ and  _ Mine. _

 

“Barebone!”

 

It’s been so long since he last heard that surname.

 

Credence snarls and opens his wrist, draws blood. Dark sand and dark ashes pour out of his veins, fed by his clenched jaw, the bile and the acid climbing up his throat.

 

Seven Aurors.

 

His head is such a mess, but he still,  _ still _ is sure there had been far more, back at City Hall Station. Men and women, he stares at them as they all move, surround him with raised wands and raised zeal - a conviction stronger than the fear for the monster frosting his eyes in white.

 

Ma had raised him helpless.

 

_ Barebone. Barebone, Barebone, Barebone--  _ And Credence grins, and the Obscurus echoes it, howling Their victory before the strike.

 

He had lived.

 

He hadn’t known there’s pleasure to fighting back.

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

**#29 - OLD**

  
  


After the initial, inevitable paranoia when he realized exactly  _ how powerful  _ was Queenie Goldstein, Theseus had sworn he’d take his time to know this woman. He’d put up his shields, watch her, talk to her like a normal person.

 

This resolution had been somewhat thwarted after a couple of days of cohabiting with her. She was sunshine incarnate, smart as a tack, and more than a bit tactless when giving advice or reading someone.

 

Tina had told him to take it as a compliment. Queenie does know deception  - she applies it with liberality and talent around the people she doesn’t trust.

 

“You’d be terrifying in a government job, y’know”, Theseus mumbles, throwing a hand over his eyes to shield them from the light on reflex. It’s not that early, but his back aches as if he hadn’t slept at all.

 

“Darling, I did have one!”, she reminds him, amused, and ties each curtain with a bow. “Are you sure you’re awake?”

 

“I meant politics. This is ruthless.” He sits down, trying to remind himself he  _ had _ insisted her to please wake him up at nine, no excuses. When he stretches, he’s pretty sure something that shouldn’t be stiff plain  _ pops. _ When had he ever become too delicate for  _ sleeping on a sofa?  _ “And yeah, I’m alive. I just didn’t want to move. Where’s Newt?”

 

Before Queenie can think of any tactful way to phrase it, another voice chimes in, startling him halfway into a heart attack - “They went to get breakfast together!.”

 

Theseus whips around and, there is Lucy, grinning at him from far too close. “Oh for magic’s--”, he sighs, rubbing at his chest.

 

“It’s true, though. Mr. Scamander and Tina got up real early.” She wrinkled her nose. “I can’t sleep when them floorboards creak like that.”

 

Theseus bites down his reaction, Queenie just laughs. “Honey, your brother is a gentleman. He just found her awake by the kitchen, yeah? He got up before you did.”

 

“And now they’re gone?”, and he tries to smile back at her. It mostly works. “I’ve barely gotten to know your sister in person.”

 

He gets on his feet, and his automatic craving for a strong cuppa is probably a billboard in technicolor, because Queenie is already waving her wand to pour the kettle as he stretches again, sore. 

 

Goddammit, but he’d spent about four years on an army cot . What the hell have these last months done to him. If he starts going grey early over this hunt…

 

“You’d look really dignified”, Queenie tells him, and  _ Merlin, please don’t do that, Queen. _

 

“Dignity has never been much of my thing”, Theseus replies, and it’s so very early to be already weighed down by the memory of Perce. Should be relieved when Queenie doesn’t comment?

 

“... Don’t slouch like that, Mr. Scamander”, Lucy asks. Somehow, the brightness in her voice had dulled from one second to the next. “You’ll get stuck forever.”

 

Theseus huffs, wiggling his eyebrows in an attempt at playfulness. “That  _ so _ doesn’t happen. Old wives’ tale.”

 

“It  _ so _ does”, she counters, lips quirking briefly… and then fading again. “I knew someone. He got stuck that way, and it was very sad.”

 

_ (‘... hurts my own spine to watch, Thes. There’s a lot of things I’m ashamed of, you know this, but I don’t think either of us quite know what’s to live so drenched in shame. It’s not permanent yet - the other day I asked him to stand straighter, and he could. Finding out he was taller than me was a surprise.’) _

 

Fuck his brain for grabbing two wildly random topics and making a connection, truly. Maybe Newt is right. Maybe he’s obsessed.

 

Jacob returns from the bakery downstairs with a tray of freshly baked muffins right on cue to save them both from drowning in memories. Lucy lets out a tiny squeal of delight and flings herself at him, wrapping her arms around his waist. And it was hard to be moody when a scent of chocolate is reminding his brain he should be getting some breakfast already.

 

The mirror of the Trackback Pin hasn’t shown him any places he recognizes lately. It goes from clear images to blurry impressions, to a vague awareness of what city and country its beacon was in. Both Newt and him have been trying to tail Credence, whenever the boy is somewhere with a name they recognize. Most times, the circumstances don’t allow them to go near him. Others, Credence just realizes he’s being followed and  _ disappears,  _ Muggle witnesses be damned, making the best possible use of the Statute when either of them has to stay behind to Obliviate the mess.

 

When Newt comes back that night, and quietly asks him to stay in Paris as a base of operations, he isn’t surprised.

 

“I’d like a lot to help with the dobercrups case”, he tells Theseus, apologetic. “I… I think I know how to save them. They’ve been hurt, they’re aggressive. But I don’t want them to be put down, and. Neither does Tina.”

 

And Theseus, he doesn’t say anything about their hunt.

 

“Should I be congratulating you on anything?”, he grins, winks instead and Newt curls up as if his coat could hide his quiet smile, or the flush in his face.

 

“Don’t be daft”, he mumbles. “It’s work. And, ahm. Maybe I can do the publishing thing from here. It’s decently close to London. Tina can help with the Portkeys, she told me. And that she could sneak you into the  _ Ministère _ so you could use them too.”

 

“Won’t that get her in trouble?”

 

“We all want to save Credence, Theseus”, Newt reminds him. It’s an unmovable truth. “You’re the one who’s had the better luck, but we’ve all been looking for him. I admit I’m… I’m far more used to working alone, but this is a good place to set camp.”

 

Theseus won’t fight him in this either. Newt has demonstrated over and over again how much he cares about the boy. They’re tired. They’re short in leads, stretched thin, and running out of money.

 

“... Did you decide a title already?”, he asked. Awkward.  _ Guilty.  _ “For your book.”

 

His little brother nods, and every joint in Theseus’ body goes heavy and creaking when he hears him reply, “I’m going with the one she gave me.”

 

He pretends to not notice when in the dead of the night, Newt slips out of his own makeshift bed. And to not hear when a second pair of footsteps creak away along with his, quietly opening the entrance door to sneak out together.

 

The click of the lock is pure lead on his vertebrae, and isn’t he selfish for it? 

 

Life had went on for everyone but him.

 

 

* * *

 

**#30 - PEACE**

  
  


_ Gellert _ is his home. The fact Nurmengard is the place wherein Gellert dwells most times is only tangential.

 

The wind never stops howling in those mountains. It whistles through the trees below, the turrets, uncaring of the fact it’s summer everywhere else. The silence left through the castle’s corridors when Credence manages to tune it out is heavy and just as cold. His footsteps echo when he walks, church-like. 

 

Storms turn the castle into all black and white, and make it even quieter. Sunsets are just as intense. The clear days bring a dusk that makes the surrounding peaks bleed.

 

Nurmengard is beautiful in a way Credence can’t help but hate.

 

It’s also as lonely as he is, and as severe as Gellert. His lover has consistently kept far too busy to entertain him ever since the Kanzleramt. It almost makes him miss any other kind of punishment. He isn’t getting new pre-approved books to read. Isn’t getting chances to catch Gellert alone, for anything that isn’t getting sent on  _ Missions  _ he doesn’t dare to deviate from, now.

 

All work, no play.

 

“You’re looking a lot like your shadow these days”, Nagini tells him, tired and pale after coming back from her latest transformation.

 

“Being bored is a terrible thing”, he replies, tranquil. He does tend to spend time as the Obscurus, when there’s nothing else to do.

 

Gellert swore he’d find a way to separate the snake from her, and Credence doesn’t want to think there’s a pattern other than his lover delighting in being a breaker of chains. They have something to give in return, and they do, because this is the way the world works.

 

It’s also the way they interact with each other.

 

Nagini helps him practice his terrible French, but refuses to speak a single word of Dutch, and tells him stories of Indonesia that always, always end up badly. Credence listens, teaches her to read, and says absolutely nothing of the New York that carved the same marks into his back.

 

Neither of them mention the Circus he'd freed her from.

 

The closest thing he’d had to a friend of his age had been Chastity, back when her soul hadn’t belonged to Ma just yet. And he doesn’t pray these days, but he wishes very dearly for her to not turn out like Chastity. Getting to know her is the thing that keeps him sane from July to September in these desolate hallways.

 

Modesty,  _ alive,  _ haunts him in ways that make him want to scream at Gellert’s face that he Knows, breaking the standstill. Forcing his lover to pay attention.

 

Modesty being  _ alive and happy _ stays his hand, and prolongs this odd peace that keeps doing its best to drive him insane.

 

Out of desperation, he talks to Nagini about it. Bare bones, no details, no  _ emotions _ . And she doesn’t know what to tell him, but when she offers him a hug, it does look that she’s not asking anything in return, and for once, he’s too exhausted for the notion to feel like a trap.

 

Credence’s life has made him paranoid. Of course he suspects foul play when Gellert deems  _ her _ ready to earn her keep, sends her away in the same kind of mission he’s been given since the Obscurus accepted his lead.

 

The quiet of the castle gets to his blood faster than ever.

 

 _('I like it here',_ he'd sworn over and over to this man who kept following him, making promises that no way could be true. _'I like it here'._ )

 

When a note from Gellert appears on his nightstand, sending him to Barcelona, he’s raw enough he doesn’t even complain about the impersonal delivery. Either he takes the excuse to leave Nurmengard, or the Obscurus will test just how embedded are the wards laid into each stone.

 

It only occurs to him mid-flight, that the caliber of the mission means it’s also a chance to prove himself deserving of Gellert’s company. The wizarding side of the city is laid underground, and the man he’s supposed to meet is one of the city’s patriarchs, from an old and rich family who’ll show him around and Do Introductions.

 

Credence had been born poor, he’s socially inept, and barely speaks his own language. But he’ll do his best.

 

When he arrives, it’s like the tense stillness has followed him right into the city. The way he can read people’s faces is pure ozone in the air - the kind that comes either before or after violence; and he has no way to know what is causing it.

 

It feels like a place where nobody on the streets quite trust each other, completely belied by the sleepy light of a Sunday afternoon. But it’s a beautiful, ancient place - Older and more solemn than Paris, and he wanders through it, feeling his steps echo on the pavement at times, asking in English for directions and not quite getting answers he can grasp. The background hum of the city could’ve lulled him into sitting down, into enjoying the view.

 

There’s someone he needs to meet, at a determinate place an hour. He’ll win Gellert back with a success.

 

Credence’s life has made him paranoid, he knows this. But when he finds himself crossing the same passageways, seeing the same fountains for the second and third time…

 

The harmony of the perfect grid he’d seen from the sky had given way to a labyrinth, the further he went downtown. The drowsy pomp of the streets kept growing them into a mausoleum the later it got - and sunset…

 

_ “Plaça del Rei?”,  _ he manages to almost pronounce, and the woman he’s stopped frowns, sensing his desperation.

 

_ “Plaça Reial”,  _ she shakes her head, and does her best to explain him how to get to the right place in this language that isn’t Spanish. He gets it’s… somewhere, across the Barri Gòtic. Even if he could understand her, he wouldn’t have been able to pay attention.

 

Sunset is a headstone falling upon him. He’s missed his meeting. He has no way to access the wizarding district to repair his fault.

 

Credence has no clue of whether he thanks the woman or not. He runs as he tries to make sense of the instructions, and it’s like the quiet city has turned hermetic on him, streets and passages and little squares blurring into one, turning corners, taking alleyways in an attempt to shortcut his way  _ north.  _ He’d never gotten lost like this. 

 

_ Plaça de Sant Miquel, Sant Felip Neri, Sant Jaume;  _ the names don’t mean a thing and suddenly he finds himself right by an old, old wall that is all arches and turrets and corroded masonry.

 

He discovers that he’s still panicking when he reads the plaque,  _ Plaça d'Emili Vilanova - Muralla de Barcelona. _

 

It’s late and it’s cold and he’s far away from a Nurmengard he hates, but that is  _ safe.  _ Until he goes back and speaks to Gellert of his failure. He would’ve cried if he remembered how it’s done.

 

He howls instead.

 

His closed fist connects with the closest tree, branches waving with a sound of lashes following each dull thud. This rage of his has nothing to do with the Obscurus, he can’t blame the weapon beneath his skin for the failure, the inadequacy, the branding, burning  _ loneliness _ of never being enough to deserve--

 

(Safety and love and a future, those are things you  _ earn,  _ those are things for  _ people.) _

 

Yellow leaves and still-green, bitter almonds rain down on him.  Credence collapses on a sitting wall the second he spots the crimson blooming on his knuckles.

 

Hiding his face with both hands, he curls upon himself and tries to remember how breathing is done amidst the silence, and the scent of blood. Slowly, slowly, he drags himself up from the twin sides of terror and fury, and into numbness. Eyes closed tight and letting the night fill his lungs until it brings him back into the real world - mostly. Still detached enough it can’t crush him.

 

It’s not peace, but it’ll do.

 

And then, he doesn’t even need to look to know who’s the man who has just sat by his side.

 

 

* * *

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>   
>  _Days before you came_  
>  Freezing cold and empty  
> Towns that change their name  
> And a horn of plenty
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
> Please keep commenting ;;? Yes? Something big is on the verge of happening, sdgjskl. Also, if y'all have any questions about the stupid amount of research I've done to worldbuild this thing, I'll be delighted to reply, for I am an enormous nerd and I love the landscape of Magical Europe I've been doing.
> 
>  
> 
> ~~Also, next chapter comes on Friday, and it has porn, just saying.~~


	11. Save It 'Till The Morning After

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Theseus isn’t sure he’d be allowed the hug he wants to give to Credence - But covering his hand with his own feels just as daring. He brushes the boy’s rough knuckles with an equally rough thumb, trying for tenderness. Hadn't he gotten hooked to chasing him across snapshots of an entire continent?
> 
> “Take me somewhere else, then", and there’s something beautiful to him under all his jagged edges. Vulnerability, perhaps. Resilience. Broken china, spilled ink, veins of gold.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ksdlgjsldkjg OK TODAY WAS A MESS. I'm late to my deadline for over an hour, but IT'S STILL FRIDAY SOMEWHERE ISN'T IT. Australia, perhaps. Honestly, though, my readers deserve the best and my brain decided at the last possible minute this chapter oughta be EXTRA LONG just when I was editing. Alas!
> 
> Maggiedragon, CcocC, Yeoyu: You guys made my entire week. I hope you enjoy this ;w; ♥

* * *

 

 

 

**#31 - POISON**

  


Credence Barebone paralyzed, curled up tight in misery, is a sorrowful sculpture of the likes Theseus had seen strewn through the rich side of a dozen graveyards. It’d taken him so long to find this boy, he’d hesitated before joining him under the falling leaves of that apricot tree.

 

He’d known Credence would hear him before he even got there, anyway.

  
  
“It’s cold outside”, he comments, wanting and failing to sound casual. “Smells a bit like rain.”

 

Credence doesn’t move. Theseus wants to believe the brief flash of amber he’d seen meant he’d at least glanced at him, that it wasn’t his mind playing tricks on him, and what has this hunt been doing to him?

 

He’s so tired there’s lead in his veins, collecting in his joints. Rust in his hair. He knows Newt is scared now this attachment to a boy he’s talked to so little is going to get him killed.

 

“This is gin”, he comments, taking out a flask. “Lady of Shallot’s - they brew it in a little magical village in Wales, y’know?”

 

Credence doesn’t move, but Theseus hears his teeth gritting, and how not to take a long gulp? Let the floral notes of it overwhelm his tongue, remind him there’s going to be another spring after autumn and winter are over.

 

(And an entire year without Percival. That too.)

 

“It tastes a little bit like roses”, he adds after a while, and offers Credence the flask. “Afraid I’ve taken to have it neat, though. But it’ll take away the chill.”

 

Maybe it was only because it was so cold they could see their breath, and because Credence had seen him drink first. But he does reach for the flask, and takes a sip.

 

 _‘Let me help’,_ he wants to tell the boy. _‘There’s nothing I’d like more. All of this can still be fixed, please just let me take you away’._

 

"You’ve told me you like it here”, Theseus says instead, quiet. Letting his exhaustion show, and for what? Was he trying to convince Credence to listen through sheer honesty? There’s a long, bitter pause before he adds, “there’s better places to be, though.”

 

Perce’s boy huffs a sound whose meaning he can’t determine, and takes another swig, before giving him the flask back. Theseus catches the slight shiver to him. The cold, perhaps, or maybe he’s just unused to something this strong despite clearly having been taught how to drink.

 

He wants so badly to drape a _Tepeo_ around those shoulders.

 

“Do you really think it’s the first time someone tries to tempt me with those sorts of promises, Mr. Scamander?”, Credence says, and _Merlin, it hurts._

 

“Wouldn’t dare to think myself first at anything”, Theseus murmurs. He can’t help but slump, even as he keeps trying. “I mean it, though. There’s so much you don’t know yet, there’s things that change everything--”

  
  
Credence stops him with a gesture. He’s a sculpture again, cold funerary marble as he clarifies, returning to his former, scripted line - “someone else’s already making theirs come true.”   


“That _someone else_ is using you”, Theseus counters and, _no,_ this wasn’t the way he ought to have been going at this. He feels Perce screaming at him from the afterlife, weighing him down, and yet he can’t stop now the dam has broken, can he? “He treats you nicely until he thinks you’ve made a mistake, doesn’t he? He’s hurting you. He’s hurting you, and when he’s done-- when he’s done, he goes back to being nice.”

 

It’s probably shock what stays Credence Barebone’s hand, he thinks, distantly.

 

“Europe is Gellert Grindelwald’s plaything”, Theseus hears himself say. “And so are you. Or so he thinks.”

 

“He says I’m a gift”, the boy drawls, and the scariest thing is, it shows he believes it. “The thing inside of me, the thing _I am,_ he says it’s a gift, and a miracle.”

 

How far did the poison go?

 

Was he too late?

 

“He’s strict. But he’s giving”, Theseus hears him continue, quiet and self-assured. “And he apologizes when he hurts me.”

 

_When._

 

What could Theseus say? What could turn around someone who thinks he deserves abuse just because the violence comes spiked with color?

 

Credence exhales, and in the cold air of autumn, his breath looks like cigarette smoke. “Europe is… enormous. And it’s beautiful, and messed up. It can’t be a plaything.” And he hears the accusing _liar_ in that now exhausted voice, before the boy spins it around with an “it’s so much better than New York.”

 

“I’d dare say”, Theseus replies, faltering,  “you know New York far, far better than Europe.”

 

He’s thinking of stolen relics to replace the German ones Versailles had demanded to burn, the rising tensions across the continent, and the greed in the Pure Bloods gagging to reclaim a lost purity that had almost driven Wizarkind to extinction. The Muggle side of history nobody in their world ever bothered to learn, and all of its messy, terrifying consequences across the globe.

 

(He thinks of the trenches - Christmas Truce against Mustard Gas. And of Percival Graves’ innocence back at the beginning, when they’d all thought this War had clear sides.)

 

Credence’s smile brings Theseus back to Barcelona, just to break his heart when he counters, “Manhattan… I should’ve torn it all down.”

 

It’s so casual it makes him want to choke. Or drink everything in his flask and then some. No city should hold as much misery as Credence Barebone’s birthplace does. He has a right to his fury, at the very least. Just--

 

 _‘He apologizes when he hurts me’_ should never, ever be said as an improvement.

 

“Credence...”, and _fuck_ , he needs to shake him up, and there it is, this unholy toxic green swirling inside Theseus’ guts - anger and empathy, the desperation for Credence to _understand_ , even if it means confronting him with all the deeds he would rather forget. “I don’t think anyone who actually knew you and loved you, would send you on missions to _hurt people.”_

 

“You don’t know a single thing about me, Mr. Scamander”, and _sodding screaming_ _hell,_ this shouldn’t make him feel like laughing at the boy, not even in hysteria.

 

Perce’s letters, a boy with the saddest eyes hidden in brief anecdotes amidst a myriad other stories. Lingering, almost obsessively, as his old lover kept repeating ‘ _Kindness and magic, his mother tried to kill them both. He still has them, Thes. This lack of evidence is--.’_

 

Smoke and mirrors to conceal the yearning.

 

Hadn’t he seen, read Percival’s private journal as well? Hadn’t he known everything that mattered about Credence Barebone weeks, months before meeting him?

 

 _Perce’s boy._ Lost, corrupted, but not gone. He should-- he should tell him, just…

 

 _“It's Theseus._ And I do. _”_

 

In the end, it’s the tension crackling through Credence’s limbs at his words what  pushes him in another direction, to coax and to insist. He drinks again, passes Credence’s the flask in a silent offer the boy takes.

 

There’s such a long pause before he adds, “I know you enough to be sure it’s killing you to be here.”

 

Perhaps it’s a good sign that Credence doesn’t bristle. That he agrees, almost casually as he gives him back the flask: “It is. I don’t want to be here.”

  
  
“You know I don’t mean this place”, and Theseus doesn’t think he’s patient, not really, but he hasn’t found any other way to do this. He had gotten hooked to chasing this boy across snapshots of an entire continent.

 

Patience, perhaps he isn’t good at. But he knows _stubbornness._ And Merlin, does he know _sorrow._

 

He isn’t sure he’d be allowed the hug he wants to give to Credence - But covering his hand with his own feels just as daring. He brushes the boy’s rough knuckles with an equally rough thumb, trying for tenderness.

 

“Take me somewhere else, then.” And this boy, there’s something beautiful to him under all his jagged edges. Vulnerability, perhaps. Resilience. Broken china, spilled ink, veins of gold…

 

His lips quirk just so, and the caress he leaves on Theseus’ palm carries the kind of dizzying invitation the Brit is far, far too used to. It's him the one who's stung, and paralyzed now. They hadn't... hadn't even...

 

Hunger could be a terrible thing, and Theseus hadn't even noticed his own starvation until, almost horrifyingly, an echo of summer curls under his navel at that touch. Unwanted. Corroding like acid, almost, for there's no way he's reading this correctly.

 

A single drop falls on his shoulder. Another one joins it soon enough, and time is running out to unfreeze and _move._ Out of the rain that's sure to come, and into  _sanity._ Cold is loneliness is hopelessness, and he'd lost  _so much_ last December only his bones remain. He'd used to like laughing and dancing and finding someone to weather the nights with, just so he didn't go back to--

 

Merlin, but he'd always had the soul of an addict, hadn't he?

 

“Somewhere else”, Credence repeats. Quiet. Defeated, even as his fingers trace spirals down the heel of Theseus’ hand, tease over the pulse inside his wrist.

 

Theseus would’ve laughed his own pain away, really. He Apparates them into his hotel room instead.

 

Mistakes could taste so bittersweet.

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

**#32 - PRETTY**

  


They aren’t kissing. Credence turns away his head when Theseus tries to and goes straight to start divesting him of his clothes, as if he hadn’t realized his intentions.  There’s a part of him that feels _owned_ when Gellert kisses him, more than anything else he does to his body. He thinks, this is an idea he likes.

 

“Merlin, you’re beautiful”, Theseus murmurs, clearing his hair away from his face, compelled to return the gesture with his fingers undoing Credence’s coat. There’s nothing measured in his words, and the sincerity of it disarms him.

 

“Mr. Scamander…” sighs, speaking past the sudden _hurt_ in his chest.“It’s not necessary for you to say these things.

 

He doesn’t look at him. What he’s feeling _has_ to be guilt. But he lets the other man take off his jacket, his vest. He stops him when he starts unbuttoning his shirt, and Theseus backs off with an “I’m sorry”, and a hesitant caress on his jawline.

 

The gesture disturbs him, and all the same it turns into fire the blood in his veins, lures him further into this choice he's taken. Gentleness is strange. He hadn’t known it could arouse him so.

 

“Are you alright?”

 

“I like doing this”, Credence replies, and it’s sincere. He falls down to his knees, nuzzles between Mr. Scamander’slegs to wake up his cock, wanting to feel it hard against his cheek.

 

This is happening so fast it should've made him run. But he has eyes. He’s allowed himself to think Mr. Scamander,  _Theseus_ is handsome, before. Right until this point, though, he had figured this idea of following him to his bedchambers was mostly, mostly to humor the man and see if this was the way he could convince him to finally go away.

 

He looks upwards, and sees the way the other man is watching him - with a bitten lip, with hands that didn’t dare to settle on him as they clearly wanted. Theseus' green eyes were pure pupil, and suddenly Credence isn’t sure this is a thing he’ll come out unscathed from.

 

Holding anyone’s gaze is a learned skill. He keeps this one as he kisses his length to make it stir, buries his nose on copper curls - hunger and static blooming through him at the scent, the spice, the lust he knows he’s the object of. He’s making this man want him, he's going to make him him moan and lose himself. The rush of it is dizzying, and he licks a path up the shaft, feeling the girth of it, the quickening pulse on its vein. Mr Scamander is already arching - Credence can see him scrambling for purchase against the wall.

 

Anticipation is such an animal reaction. Gellert has fed his capacity for it, and taught him to crave it. He whimpers when he licks the smooth tip, tasting clean skin and heat. Arousal has his heart and guts in a tight hold, it squeezes until they drip _guilt._

 

So he does it again. And again, wanting to hurry this man into growing hard for him, thinking already of the slick he'll see bead on the tip, the salt on his tongue, and his own desire tightening his slacks.  _‘I like doing this’,_ and it’s true, and he deserves the hurt it brings. Credence leans away and takes in the pretty picture of Theseus Scamander already wrecked by desire, taking him in in return.

 

He wraps his lips around the glans and  _sucks._ Tongue flat against the underside, cheeks hollowing in need, in  _daring._

 

“Credence…”, Theseus whimpers, breathless - and he sounds so good it makes Credence want to swallow him whole. Choke on his cock just so he can hear him a little longer, and who would stop him now? “You’re so good, go on, sweetheart. It’s fine.”

 

It's the praise what makes him wince, and then stop.

 

Mr. Scamander, somehow, winces in return. Softly, straightening up now, he reaches to caress Credence’s hair - sudden familiarity freezing him between leaning into it by instinct, or slapping his hand away. “You aren’t alright”, he states, and the lack of a following question is a dare for Credence to prove him wrong.

 

He can’t. And when he takes in Mr. Scamander's cock to suck at it as far as he can go, it's in a plea for him to forget, now.

  
Mr. Scamander’s face shifts into something so pained it can only last for a moment. He sighs, schools himself into someone calmer, more reassuring. “Credence,” he gentles him, whispering. “I’m not doing something that will hurt you.”

 

Credence watches him take his hand away and tuck himself into his pants. Another long stretch of seconds, muffled under the sound of rain drumming on the windows’ glass, and the other man desperately combs fingers through his own hair, as if not to pace.

 

“I’m incredibly sorry”, Mr. Scamander tries again, and _he can’t wrap his head around this man,_ and the wait for the other shoe to finish dropping his driving him mad. “I should’ve stopped earlier.”

 

There’s no use on remaining on his knees. Credence says nothing and gets up. Checks his watch nervously, too.

 

“Do you have anywhere to go?”, the other man asks, and that’s _worry_. It only makes him more anxious.

 

“I don’t need it, Mr. Scamander”, Credence replies, pragmatic. “When I shift, I don’t need to rest.”

 

Didn’t need to rest. Didn’t need to think unless he wanted to. Being Them meant feelings were just things to taste and consume, and forgetting his own.

 

“Theseus. Please call me Theseus, we were just--”, and he sighs, distressed. Exasperated, and Credence is anticipating his anger now with a twisted _‘Finally’_ that ends up unanswered. “Would you stay here? Take my bed.”

 

Baffled and almost insulted, Credence’s mouth falls open. “I’m not kicking you out of your own bed. Sir.”

 

 _“Merlin’s saggy tits,_ then we’ll share. We can. I won’t touch you, just, please, let me give you a place to stay. It’s pouring outside. _It’s cold._ ”

 

“I don’t see what has to do with anything.”

 

Mr. Scamander’s mouth drops open, he observes, and now the insulted one is him. It comes like yet an another surprise when the man purposefully takes distance and turns around slowly to take out his wand, charm the bed bigger.

 

“... You’re very sure I won’t kill you while you sleep”, and even though Credence is pretty sure of his capacity for poker face, it shows Mr. Scamander, Theseus Scamander, isn’t buying any of it.

 

“Please, Credence”, and Lord, it’s _weird_ that this man is frustrated, but won’t do anything about it. “You would’ve had-- Listen. I’ll take my chances.”

 

“Mr. Scamander”, and he’s so wary, but he still makes it sound more like a statement than a request to be taken for the threat he was. “Are you aware I can’t be killed?”

 

Theseus stares at him through the length of three frozen heartbeats, and then Credence adds, “a lot of people have tried. Have tried to lock me up, too.”

 

By now, he isn’t sure he’s hidden well how he did include himself in those numbers -  for both cases. Mr. Scamander is trying very hard to remain calm as he replies, “I didn’t know. But I wasn’t going to do either.”  


The tremor in his voice...

 

Credence Barebone isn’t true to any of his many names, and definitively not a good person. Because he didn’t plan at all for this reaction, it makes him swallow a flinch, and yet evidence of _Mr. Scamander hurting for him_ had convinced his brain that he was to be trusted.

 

He nods, and touches Mr. Scamander’s arm in gratitude, squeezing. It surprises him when the other man does the same - and it’s not an embrace but it feels like it, so he cuts it short and lies down, on his back as he seldom does. Mr. Scamander spells the covers warm and gets in too, leaving as much of a distance as he can, to the point Credence’s gut reaction is rejection instead of relief.

 

And then, he realizes the other man is trying to be _respectful._

 

The rain feels like an extra layer against what is now Credence’s _normal._ He isn’t sure of when was the last time he shared a bed to sleep. Gellert does humor him when he can, but he keeps odds hours. Mr. Scamander doesn’t snore, but he can hear his even, deep breaths so clearly he might as well - and so, he isn’t sure _when_ he passes out, either.

 

It’s restful sleep.  


 

* * *

 

 

**#33 - RAIN**

  


“Did you even get to see the city yesterday?”, he asks Credence as they walk down the stairs.

 

There’s a scent of tomatoes and fresh bread in the air so strong it masks the one of coffee. It leads Theseus to the hotel’s breakfast nook without mistakes, nor a need of asking for directions.

 

“Not really”, Credence admitted, sluggish with sleep and hunger. Softened by them, maybe. “I was told to go look at the _Barri Gòtic._ I… I was supposed to be approached by someone there.”

 

His enunciation of the Rs is pure New York and Theseus can’t help the smile.

 

Waking up next to Credence Barebone had been as much of an odd experience for him as it apparently had been for the boy. The memory of the things they'd been this close to do had lingering heavy between them, a hangover of sorts, and yet... 

 

He's going to make things more  _normal._ He's going to make this a Good Day. If only, because he can't remember the last one of those he had, and... he suspects it's the same for this boy.

 

“I had never been here either”, he offers. “But I’ve heard things of the Muggle side. There’s gardens and nice buildings, piers and an amusement park. Some crazy Spaniard is building this cathedral so weird some people keep insisting it’s a breach of the Statute.”

 

Credence says nothing. Theseus would swear there’s a hint of longing to his sigh. Of the same wanderlust that soaks the bones of all Scamanders either like a curse or the best of lucky charms.

 

“I think”, he insists as he finds them a table, “you should at least try to see some of it.”

 

What a strange bet he's taking. 

 

A waitress comes to check on them and he isn’t quite sure of what is he asking for as they communicate in the universal language of pointing and nodding.

 

“I had never left Manhattan”, Credence’s voice is quiet even after she leaves, and a bit tinted by shame too. “Before last December.”

 

He knows this boy isn’t nearly as free as he wants to think. That his master awaits. That it's not like sightseeing is going to convince him there's better places to stay at than Nurmengard.

 

But Theseus is reckless and hope is something that, somehow, survived even the Great War and all the weight of his loneliness. And he grins, offers “would you like to?”

 

Credence meets his eyes. He can barely believe them when he sees him smiling.

  
  
They ask in the reception after eating for places to go to. Somehow amidst the Catalan neither of them know nor the English the man behind the desk doesn’t speak, the words _“Belles Arts”_ or something that sounds like them comes up and Theseus takes note of the address.

 

The wild layout of the city means they get utterly lost despite how close they are to the _Parc de la Ciutadella_ , and the grey skies over them are already crackling by the time they find the museum, pregnant with water and static. A bored guard denies them entrance out of what seems spite until they manage to understand it’s because _it’s Monday._

 

Credence says nothing. But Theseus seems to catch his disappointment, and it's been so long since he'd last visited a museum. Almost as long as the last time he'd used magic to break into places, for the sheer pleasure of it and not his job.

 

"It's a pity", he tells to the boy. "I've heard nice things about this place. Do you think we could come back here one day?"

 

Credence says nothing, but his expression is naked enough Theseus can guess the answer is no. So he sighs in sympathy - Until the guard stops looking their way. 

 

He spins a Disillusionment Charm around them, and grabs the boy's hand to Apparate them inside.

  
  
He gets his reward in the shape of the quiet, huffy sound of Credence’s disbelieving laughter, and _oh._ Oh, he’s so very sure all of a sudden his had been a misstep, but he’s impulsive by virtue and vocation, and he’s been testing his luck since last night.

 

It’s, after all, the first demonstration of _actual joy_ he has gotten from Credence Barebone. And amidst what he knows has to be the European sequel to his misery back in New York, he’s glad he can give Perce’s boy even this much.

 

Their museum visit, and the unbridled awe he sees all over his face as they go through the first collection, gets cut short when rain starts splattering against the windows all over again. Credence starts taking surreptitious glances at his watch, anxiety trickling over him until it becomes a visible spill.

 

“We should”, Theseus finds himself saying, “leave some part of this place for a next visit.”

 

Credence just nods, and it's all he needs to know to realize, time's up for them. Probably has been for a lot longer. He Apparates them back to the entrance, and wrapping both of them in _Tepeo_ comes as second nature as soon as he feels the chilly wind blowing outside.

 

Theseus doesn't need to ask to know his bet, _his offer_  wasn't enough. Would've never been. He'd done his best. Shouldn't he be grateful he'd at least gotten the boy to laugh?  
  
  


He'd had to tear the entirety of himself away from it, after all.

 

He still tries to stretch the time they have left. Suggests walking to the entrance, the invisible umbrella springing from his wand as inviting as he can. Stopping to admire the small artificial lake by one side, as their steps crunch over the wet gravel. Stopping by the greenhouse, where he can spot a smattering of color that could only mean the miracle of roses blooming in October.

 

Credence leaves the umbrella, gets close enough to look through the glass panels. He turns to Theseus, soaked in melancholy.

 

Theseus just… sighs. Puts the wand inside his pocket, spreads his hands.

 

“I’m not going to insist for you to stay”, he says carefully. It kills him a little, and he thinks back to last night and the mistakes they avoided. It was the right thing. It’s not that what he regrets. “Let me just--”

 

And Credence tilts his head, waiting for him to finish, silence like a prompt.

 

“I think”, Theseus says, and _this is sincere,_ and he knows all of him reflects the plea in his words, “you need a friend.”

 

Whatever last night had been on the verge of being, it’s not what either of them should be looking for.

  
“Please, just let me be your friend.”

 

He feels like the rain is nailing him in place as he waits for an answer, and then Credence smiles and goes to him. Puts a hand in his shoulder with the paused rhythm of hesitance.  


“Mr. Scamander...” he says. “You’re a kind man.”

 

Theseus can’t remember tasting anything as sweet as the surprise kiss this boy leaves on his lips.

 

Credence Barebone fades into grey smoke and rises before he reacts to kiss him back. There’s no way to tell him from the pouring storm clouds, blurring the sight of it all - until the last real thing is the feeling of his own warm fingertips brushing the place where this boy, _Perce’s boy,_ has branded him on.

 

It takes him so much longer to notice Credence had threaded the silver Trackback Pin on the epaulette of his coat before he left.

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am so, so very sorry for the cockblocking y'all in #32. That was **pretty** close isn't it. *Finger guns*
> 
> It's literally 2:30 in Chile and so I've lost all sense of shame. I'm here, banging pots and pans in a plea for the people who've read this thing to come out of the woodworks and like, Tell me what you liked, what you didn't like, and if there's anything you outright hated. Please? ;AA;


End file.
